Dear Editor, In the summer of 2020, the nation watched 8 minutes and 46 seconds of video of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of a detained man named George Floyd until Floyd was asphyxiated to death. It was horrific, and Floyd was only one of several people of color who died at…

Dear Editor, Our state Legislature is meeting this week to vote on overriding Governor Scott’s vetoes of legislation introduced during the latest session. One of the bills for consideration is H. 887, the annual “yield bill,” which funds our public education system through property taxes. Governor Scott has rightly vetoed this bill because, according to…

By Angelo Lynn Editor’s note: Angelo Lynn is publisher of the Addison Independent, a sister paper to the Mountain Times. On a few notable foreign policy issues, President Joe Biden, along with fellow Democrats and Progressives, need to reset their politics to match today’s reality. Specifically, how America manages immigration on its southern border needs…

By Allen Gilbert Editor’s note: Allen Gilbert is a former journalist, teacher and ACLU-VT executive director. He chaired his school board in Worcester when it joined the education funding lawsuit that resulted in the Brigham v. State decision by the Vermont Supreme Court in 1997. Gilbert is the author of “Equal Is Equal, Fair Is Fair,” a…

Dear Editor, Short-term rental owners are not the evil housing tycoons we are sometimes made out to be. Vacation rentals peppered around our state make up just 2.5% of our housing stock yet contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to our state budget in the form of rooms/meals taxes and consumer spending. I’ve lived in Guilford for…

Dear Editor, In the peaceful farmlands and meadows of Vermont, a silent emergency unfolds. Bees, the heart of our agricultural ecosystem, face unprecedented threats to their survival. Despite Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Market reports claiming that bee populations are thriving, beekeepers around the state emphasize the deteriorating health of their colonies. These adverse…

By Rep. Rebecca Holcombe Editor’s note: Holcombe is the state house representative for Windsor-Orange 2 and member of the Vermont House Appropriations Committee. She also served as the Vermont Secretary of Education 2014-2018. It’s groundhog day. Governor Scott vetoed the yield bill, again leaving Vermont school districts adrift. The reason: all the school budgets voters…

Dear Editor, The movement to stop Israel’s murderous campaign against Palestinian civilians is up against the entire American military/industrial/congressional complex and assorted American war/death culture allies like AIPAC, The Heritage Foundation, and Fox News. Leaders of the most powerful American institutions and major party presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden want to continue official…

Dear Editor, Every year, beginning on June 1, bears, bobcats, foxes, and other wildlife are pursued by packs of hounds, potentially over miles of land, during Vermont’s hound “training” season. Since this is also the time of year when wildlife is tending to their young, this “training” may lead to orphaned animals, as well as vulnerable wildlife suffering…

Jim Harrison of Chittenden announced his candidacy for a new term as state representative for the Rutland-11 district (Chittenden, Killington, Mendon, and Pittsfield). He was first appointed to the legislature in 2017 by Governor Phil Scott and has been re-elected to new terms since then. Harrison is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, the…

Dear Editor, In Vermont’s quest for equitable education funding, Act 127 represents a beacon of hope, especially for our rural communities. This legislation, informed by thorough research from Rutgers and the University of Vermont, revises the state’s school funding formulas to reflect the actual costs of educating students in diverse socio-economic settings, with a significant focus…

Dear Editor, The debate over educational equity in Vermont, particularly around the implementation of Act 127 and the Pupil Weighting Factors Report, touches deeply on the state’s social and economic disparities. This conflict is starkly illustrated by the historical and current attitudes of certain towns towards neighboring communities, especially in the context of educational funding…

Dear Editor, We have an urgent call to action: to protect 3SquaresVT/SNAP benefits nationwide for millions of families, including nearly 70,000 people in our state. In early May, the U.S. Congress began to progress on Farm Bill negotiations again. Just a day apart, the chairs of the House and Senate Agriculture committees released their respective Farm…

Dear Editor, In a dismaying attempt to obstruct Vermont’s environmental and economic progress, Governor Scott vetoed compromise legislation aimed at modernizing the Renewable Energy Standard and setting the state on a path to delivering 100% renewable electricity by 2035.  By vetoing H.289, which was supported by nearly all of the state’s electric utilities, along with…

Dear editor, On May 9, the SVUUSD FY25 budget once again failed. While this budget was defeated, it was by a much narrower margin than in the previous two votes. During a school board meeting on May 13, the board decided to schedule a revote on this budget for May 30, with an informational meeting…