Hartland Democrat Matt Dunne continues to prepare for a likely gubernatorial run. The former state senator and 2006 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor last week helped launch the vermontfuture.org Web site, which allows respondents to submit ideas and read about various topics relevant to the Green Mountain State.

The site includes information about such issues as the Catamount Health program, school consolidation and Vermont's energy future, while also helping Dunne add to his network of potential supporters. More than 425 people had already signed onto the site's FaceBook group.

Dunne said as he talked to friends about possibly running, “the thrust of the conversation was about Vermont's future and what it could look like in a new era.”

“This is a great way to engage Vermonters in that conversation and see who is interested in continuing that conversation through the campaign and into changing the way that we do business as a state,” he said.

Dunne, who turns 40 next month, has great connections he can tap into: in Washington from his work as national director of AmeriCorps Vista in the Clinton administration, from his Vermont campaigns and through his current job as head of community affairs for Google.

Dunne also has always been quite skilled in encouraging and organizing younger voters to enter the fray, though one goof was to back John Edwards, D-Dog House, over Barack Obama, D-White House, in the 2008 primaries.

With several other Democrats in the race, including state Sen. Doug Racine and Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, and Senate President Pro Temp Peter Shumlin, D-Putney, also expected to join in, Dunne plans to make his final decision by sometime next month. He also has opened a campaign account and has started raising money for a campaign.

Hanover resident Joe Asch, a 1979 Dartmouth graduate who has not been shy about criticizing many policies on campus, is thinking seriously of becoming a petition candidate for Dartmouth's Board of Trustees.

“I'm looking at it, I look at it every year, because I think the Board of Trustees really needs people who know something about the school,” said Asch, a Yale Law School graduate who now writes for Dartblog.com as a sideline to his business activities.

His most recent post suggests that Asch has little confidence that official alumni groups will nominate an independent-minted candidate to become an alumni trustee.

“What do you bet that the Committee continues its tradition of nominating only people like its past candidates: alumni who could not see a single thing wrong at the College no matter how hard they looked, except perhaps that the English Department had been insufficiently forthcoming with superlatives to express the greatness of Jim Wright's presidency?,” Asch writes.

A former consultant with Bain & Co., Asch owns a paramedical products company based in England and co-owns the River Valley Club with his wife Elizabeth.

Activists and church groups on Tuesday converged on the district offices of U.S. Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., to urge them to support a public option for health insurance.

At least three clergy members from Claremont and Charlestown met with a Shaheen staff member in her Claremont district office as part of an effort by the faith-based community, and more than 25 other residents organized by Working Families Win also weighed in in Claremont, according to Jaime Contois, the WFW New Hampshire coordinator.

The activists said they are concerned that the Senate is dumping the public option to get a final bill that conservative Democrats, and even a handful of Republicans, may support.

Contois said her group wants to make sure that Shaheen doesn't back away from a public option.

“Moderate Democrats are going to decide what's going to happen with health care reform this year. That means we need to have our concerns duly noted, so it's important that we are heard and that people’s stories and their voices are being brought to Washington. That's why we elect the leaders we elect,” Contois said.

Shaheen spokeswoman Nell McGarrity said Shaheen “has said for a long time that she supports a public option.”

But the Washington dance away from the public option was also evident in the following: “Her main goal is fixing health care reform, because the status quo is not sustainable. She would like there to be more competition … she thinks the public option is the best way to do that, but there are some other proposals out there that would also add competition to the market,” McGarrity said.

Democratic Congressional candidate Ann McLane Kuster will be appearing at three Upper Valley venues in the days and weeks to come in her bid for New Hampshire's Second Congressional district seat. Kuster will appear at a house party and fundraiser in Grantham Sunday afternoon; at a similar function in Hanover on Nov. 12, and be the featured speaker at a Lebanon Democrats function on Nov. 6.

The Lebanon Democrats group isn't taking sides in the primary; they plan to hold similar events for other Democrats seeking the seat now held by U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes, the Concord Democrat running for U.S. Senate.

John P. Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com