Discover More from This Category: Letters
Expansion of border policy increases risk for asylum seekers
November 9, 2022
Dear Editor, For months, the Biden Administration has committed to ending Title 42, a Trump-era border policy that has deported tens of thousands of asylum-seekers. Last week, instead of fulfilling those promises, the administration announced that it would be expanding Title 42 to prevent Venezuelans who seek asylum from gaining access to safety. Seeking asylum…
Elect McCormack, Clarkson and White to Senate
October 26, 2022
Dear Editor, This election year, Windsor County has the opportunity to elect three excellent candidates to the state Senate. Representing the largest geographic Senate district in the state takes a special type of person. They must be willing to show up in every corner of a district that sprawls from Thetford to Weston and Springfield…
Consider women’s health care when you vote for abortion bans
October 26, 2022
Dear Editor, I believe that women’s health care, including abortion, is a medical issue, and making it into a political issue is a mistake. As Rev. Raphael Warnock, U.S. Senator from the state of Georgia, recently stated, “I happen to think that a patient’s room is too small a place for a woman, her doctor…
I’m running for assistant judge
October 12, 2022
Dear Editor, I am running as an Independent for Rutland County assistant judge in the November election. I believe the office should be nonpartisan and as apolitical as possible, so that is why I’m running as an Independent. I will not seek or accept any campaign contributions. I’ve failed at retirement since I left Castleton…
25 rats available for adoption
October 12, 2022
Dear Editor, The Rutland County Humane Society (RCHS) has 25 pet rats up for adoption. Rats make wonderful pets as they are both social and smart. They do well in same gender groups so plan to have at least two. They typically live between 18–36 months. They are nocturnal so they will be most active…
On the legalization of sex work
September 14, 2022
Dear Editor, Montpelier is now the second city in the state to decriminalize prostitution within its city limits, and I am deeply concerned for what this move will mean for Vermont. Regardless of where you stand on the issue of sex work, the reality is that wherever prostitution is decriminalized, there is a subsequent increase…
Addressing the health care crisis
September 14, 2022
Dear Editor, Every indicator says we are rapidly approaching the implosion of healthcare in Vermont and probably the nation. The 2021 Vermont Household Health Insurance Survey indicates that 38% of Vermonters under age 65 are underinsured, as are 32.3% of those on Medicare. Since the Green Mountain Care Board has again approved large rate increases…
Colleges are also billionaires
September 14, 2022
Dear Editor, U.S. colleges bear considerable responsibility for the student debt crisis. Colleges with fat endowments (and bloated tuitions) should be tapped to help address this crisis. How about increased federal and state taxes on endowments to help pay for the dangerous student-debt bailout idea? We hear billionaires should pay their fair share. Well, many…
Lake of transparency is a problem with Lake Bomoseen Association
August 31, 2022
Dear Editor, There is a great deal of frustration in the community toward the Lake Bomoseen Association (LBA) and the Lake Bomoseen Preservation Trust (LBPT) right now and it appears that much of it has been self induced by the LBA board. The LBA and LBPT and specifically their boards take a position of authority…
Lake Bomoseen Association more self-serving than charitable
August 31, 2022
Dear Editor, The Lake Bomoseen Association was formed in 1954 in response to concerns over water pollution; both from private systems and the large hotels that discharged sewage directly into the lake. While working cooperatively with the town of Castleton and state agencies, this situation was greatly improved as the town sewer was extended along…
Lincoln’s words still ring true
August 31, 2022
Dear Editor, “We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies.” Abraham Lincoln wrote these words for his First Inaugural Address delivered as civil war loomed. And also, “Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” We then as a country dismissed the warning, and the carnage of…
Hut plan doesn’t pass scrutiny
August 24, 2022
Dear Editor, The recent proposal by Vermont Huts Association and Moosalamoo Association to construct a hut next to Silver Lake in the Moosalamoo National Recreation and Education Area in Leicester reveals numerous problems with the USDA/Forest Service’s management of the Green Mountain National Forest. Pitched as connecting trails and establishing a series of huts for…
Reproductive rights Article 22 attacks the family
August 24, 2022
Dear Editor, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,” to quote John Lennon. Some plan to go to college, some plan to marry, some plan careers, and many succeed in following their plans. Then, it happens, the unexpected, the interruption. The future is now depending on making choices. The feeling of being…
Farms get a pollution pass
August 24, 2022
Dear Editor, Vermont has known for at least 60 years that it is not meeting its water quality standards in Lake Champlain and that the major contributor to the problem is conventional dairy. Conventional farming was designed in the years following Wolrd War II, when fossil fuels were cheap and abundant. The Haber-Bosch process, invented…
Data centers drain electricity
August 24, 2022
Dear Editor, We were recently in Millinocket, Maine, where one of the largest paper mills in the world closed in 2008, and wondered, after we got home, what was going to happen to the old mill site. According to ourkatahdin.com and other sources, the site has been bought by a company called Nautilus, which plans…