Dear Editor, Where is one expected to go and what is one supposed to do, particularly when there is no place located either centrally downtown or elsewhere within easy strolling distance, to go, most especially at night, on the weekend or on an official holiday when one urgently needs to relieve themselves and there is…

Dear Editor, Vermont Senate bill S.5, the Affordable Heat Act, is an attempt to lower Green House Gas (GHG) emissions from heating  buildings in Vermont. A laudable objective. However, the bill goes about this reduction in an extremely complicated and expensive way. It requires fossil fuel dealers to pay for their customers to invest in…

By Bill McKibben Editor’s note: Bill McKibben is an internationally known climate activist and writer who lives in Ripton. I have been arguing for some time now that we’ve reached the point in human history where we should stop setting stuff on fire: coal, oil, biomass, or in this case the “natural gas” that’s burned…

By Anya Rader Wallack Editor’s note: Anna Wallack is the chair of the OneCare Vermont board of managers. OneCare Vermont is improving the health of Vermonters and lowering the cost of health care. OneCare is an Accountable Care Organization (ACO). We partner with health insurance companies, hospitals, independent medical practices, community health organizations and community…

Dear Editor, I’ve spent my professional life as a primary care pediatrician, mostly in Vermont. Now I’m retired and the beneficiary of Medicare. I see alarming signs that Medicare, a public good, is being privatized and abused by for-profit insurance companies. Their greed threatens the integrity and sustainability of Medicare. Medicare Advantage plans are actively…

Dear Editor, Egg prices have tripled in some states in the past year, largely because of the slaughter of nearly 58 million birds sickened by bird flu. Yet, no price can possibly justify the cruelty inherent in egg production. When chicks are hatched, all “useless” males are ground up alive or suffocated in large plastic…

By Jack Hoffman Editor’s note: Jack Hoffman is senior analyst at Public Assets Institute (www.publicassets.org), a non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Montpelier. He is a resident of Marshfield currently living in France. There were two threads running through Gov. Phil Scott’s fourth inaugural address last week. One was a clear, even refreshing, acknowledgement of the…

By Lise Sparrow Editor’s note: Rev. Dr. Lise Sparrow is the chair of religious affairs of the Windham County NAACP. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”  Here in Vermont the dismantling of structural racism has been happening slowly but relentlessly…

By Scott Giles and Joyce Judy Editor’s note: Scott Giles is the president and CEO of Vermont Student Assistance Corp; Joyce Judy is president of the Community College of Vermont. We’ve long known that the most promising jobs in Vermont require education and training beyond high school. Yet too often, Vermonters seeking that education and…

By Jim Condos For more than 35 years, it has been my great honor to serve the people of Vermont as a public servant as: Secretary of state for 12 years, state senator for eight years, and South Burlington city councilor for 18 years.  During this time, I have always worked hard to serve Vermont’s…

Dear Editor, A very important fact was edited from my letter to the Mountain Times on Dec. 28 about Killington’s removal of beaver dams that the town residents should be made aware of. It’s obvious the town and state have implemented this river management plan in the complete absence of knowledge about the river itself.…

Dear Editor, In the Dec. 28 Mountain Times, a letter writer made many false claims and assertions. I am referring to the letter about Killington’s river permit. The writer is uninformed and not qualified to make these comments regardless of how much time they have spent paddling the river. I have lived on this segment…

By Michael J. Caduto Editor’s note: Michael J. Caduto is author and co-author of more than 20  books, including the “Keepers of the Earth” series. He is executive director of Sustainable Woodstock. He lives in Reading. Although Jan. 1 is day one in the year of the Western (Gregorian) calendar, it is not written in…

Dear Editor, ‘I don’t give them money, because they’re just going to buy drugs with it. I don’t want to feed their addiction.' Let’s unpack that statement that was just repeated to me for what felt like the gazillionth time today. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not. But let’s say for argument’s sake they are…

Dear Editor, Since the merger between Vermont PBS and VPR and the subsequent name change, I have been referring to the organization as “Vermont Public Whatever.” My suggestion, made to a long time VPR reporter as well as various concerned members of the public I have spoken to on the subject, was that the merged…