By Rachel Carter When choosing to purchase food, cost is often a deciding factor for consumers. Why buy a 12-ounce package of local bacon for $7.99 when you can get it for $4.98? Purchasing local food means you know where your food comes from, you’re buying food that is generally healthier, and you’re helping drive…

By Angelo S. Lynn Give Gov. Phil Scott credit for utilizing the element of surprise. In his budget address this past Tuesday, Jan. 24, he rocked Montpelier’s world by suggesting that public schools, K-12, freeze their budgets at current spending levels, force teachers to pay more for their health care plans (from roughly 15 to…

By Rob Roper When I was in second grade, my parents moved our family from Virginia to Connecticut because Dad took a job in New York City. They chose the town of Riverside to live in based largely on the quality of the public school system. We were lucky to be able to afford to…

By Polly Mikula “Tell me what democracy looks like?” chanted protesters at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. “This is what democracy looks like!” the crowd yelled back. It was one of many chants repeated Saturday, Jan. 21, as over 500,000 people descended on the streets of the nation’s capital the day after Trump’s inauguration…

By Angelo S. Lynn Under Donald Trump’s presidency, American voters will face a stark choice: They’ll have to decide if facts matter more than Trump’s lies mixed with his deliberate distortions. What we know is that Trump will attempt to recast the news to fit his version of reality, because if he can get away…

By Jeff Tieman Having arrived last August as the new president and CEO of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, I am still fairly new to Vermont. A few observations so far: 1) this is a wonderful place full of energy and life, 2) the people are kind, smart and passionate, and 3)…

By Gail Johnson The question “Can Rutland have it all?”—an expanding commerce base, increased employment, new residents—isn’t rhetorical any more. The three issues are easily combined in conversations, editorials, and now in a story that made front page of The New York Times on Jan. 2, 2017, “Ailing Vermont Town Pins Hopes on Mideast Refugees.”…

Dear Editor, Up until a few years ago, ski passes for seniors were given at age 65 and at age 72 you were considered a “super senior.” That super senior season pass was $549. So, why did the mountain raise the age of the super senior pass to 79 and charge $200 more? That’s because the information…

By Jon Morgolis, VTDigger Fake news has not come to Vermont. Not that some Vermonters don’t consider a report in the newspaper or on TV here and there to have been inaccurate or biased. But that’s not what fake news is. Fake news is a completely invented false item, like the one about the Pope…

By Rob Roper During the gubernatorial campaign Phil Scott set a goal to expand Vermont’s population from 625,000 to 700,000 over the next 10 years or so. This is a pretty tall order (maybe unattainable), but the governor-elect’s call does raise an important issue. Our state’s population is stagnant, and if we want to be…

By Lee H. Hamilton As Mario Cuomo said, politicians campaign in poetry but have to govern in prose. Now we have a president-elect who campaigned in tweets...but still will have to govern in prose. So, like a few thousand other Americans, I’d like to give him some advice. Not on the substance of policy itself…

By Jon Margolis, VTDigger Vermont, they say, is a well-educated state. Whatever that means. The criteria for what qualifies a person as “educated” are debatable and subjective, so let’s stick to objective, empirically verifiable information: Vermont has one of the highest college graduation rates in the country. According to an analysis of Census Bureau data…

Dear Editor, I am a proud product of Vermont public schools. I was raised in North Pomfret, Vt., and attended a series of one-room schoolhouses, serving students from kindergarten to fifth grade. Most of our schools (there were four) had fewer than 14 students per building spanning several grade levels. One teacher working with an…

By Emerson Lynn Monday, Dec. 19, Vermont’s electors met in Montpelier to do what is expected of them, which is to commit themselves to the losing candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Of all states, Vermont gave her the highest percentage support, which means, obviously, that we gave President-elect Donald Trump the least. Because Mr. Trump is…

By Lee H. Hamilton Franklin Roosevelt once said, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely.” He was talking about why education matters in a representative democracy, but it’s a safe bet that had he known about fake internet news, he’d have said the same thing—except maybe with more…