WTF, Burlington?
[Re “Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak Will Prescreen Police Press Releases,” January 9, online]: I’m just checking in from central Vermont: Has everyone in Burlington completely lost their mind?
When the Burlington police chief dares to point out publicly that a criminal with “nearly 2,000 police encounters and more than three dozen convictions, including six felonies” is still roaming the streets because Vermont’s judges refuse to apply the “habitual criminal” law to him and lock him up for good, Burlington’s Progressive mayor, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, doesn’t respond by calling for replacing irresponsible judges; she responds by demanding that the police chief not issue public statements without clearing them with her first!
Heaven forbid that anyone in Burlington’s government publicly prioritize the protection of the public over the protection of “alleged” criminals — who, after all, might be completely innocent in their 2,001st police encounter! And the citizens of Burlington just elected this person mayor?
“Planet Earth calling Burlington — come in, Burlington!”
David Humphrey
Strafford
Majestic Memories
[Re “Majestic Meetup: Industry Veterans Open a Neighborhood Bar and Casual Eatery in Burlington’s South End,” January 8]: Majestic Car Rental was only a short-timer in that building. It would have been good for your story to include the original history.
The building was a longtime Shell gas station owned by Winston “Winnie” Whittemore and his wife, Connie. The Whittemores, including their three daughters, were Burlington originals.
Whittemore always made sure the property was in tip-top shape, including a garden of petunias along the east-side perimeter of the lot that he planted and personally maintained every day. He not only had two mechanics but he also gave jobs to local high school kids to pump gas, including yours truly and Steve Koss.
Ted Cohen
Burlington
More to the Shannon Story
[“Joan Shannon to Retire From Burlington City Council,” January 2, online] raised two significant concerns: first, about Seven Days‘ coverage itself. The article was little more than a repackaging of the Burlington Democratic Party’s press release and failed to dig into a significant backstory: that Joan kept her name on the ballot until three days after the deadline for anyone else to add their name.
This strategy no doubt had a chilling effect on others being willing to run, as they would have had to assume that they were running against her. (I challenged Joan at the caucus two years ago and got flattened.) While I was not interested in running this time around, I would have loved to see a bigger and more diverse field of candidates. Joan’s exclusionary strategy leading up to the caucus deserved more coverage.
Second, about the bigger picture of how Burlington selects candidates for local races. Unlike most of the rest of Vermont, we use party-run caucuses instead of local government-run primaries. This means that the process by which we decide who is on the ballot is not subject to any public oversight. And in their current virtual form, caucuses in Burlington are highly opaque and exclusionary, structurally favoring people who are already on the inside.
It’s long past time for Burlington to do away with party-run caucuses and move to city-run open primaries instead. Our core democratic processes should not be in private hands. Let’s take them back.
Jason Van Driesche
Burlington
Editor’s note: Van Driesche’s letter refers to the first, breaking version of this story on sevendaysvt.com. A second iteration appeared in print six days later, on the Last 7 page of our January 8 issue. That write-up explored the timing of Shannon’s decision, including Van Driesche’s allegation and Shannon’s response that she decided not to run only after learning that other candidates were seeking the position.
Subcontractor Scam
Thanks for Derek Brouwer’s investigation of Vermont Construction Company [“Risky Business: Housing Violations Involving a Fast-Growing Vermont Roofing Company Expose Role of Immigrants in the Trades,” December 18]. Judging from housing violations and other complaints, VCC could be using off-the-books immigrant roofers to underbid firms that comply with labor laws. In the Sunbelt construction industry and the New York metropolitan area, this is an old playbook that we don’t want in Vermont.
Here’s what could be happening: Reliable employees with legal status turn into independent subcontractors. They then recruit young men from their family networks or neighborhoods, either in a stateside migrant enclave or in a country of origin. If workers have just arrived in the U.S., the subcontractor may have paid human smugglers for their trip and they may be working off the loan. Because verifying legal status is the subcontractor’s duty, this widens the labor supply to anyone who is willing to work on a roof, not just immigrants with legal status. Because wages, workers’ comp, etc. are also the subcontractor’s duty, these too can be trimmed. Lower labor costs enable rapid growth.
If attractive low bids are the reason the University of Vermont, Beta Technologies and ReArch have hired VCC for roofing jobs, these entities and Vermont authorities should ask VCC to document the legal status and pay stub history of all workers on its job sites.
David Stoll
Middlebury
‘Deeper Reporting’ on Labor
Alongside my Vermont Asylum Assistance Project colleagues, legal fellow Emma Matters-Wood and volunteer Sara Stowell, I appreciate Seven Days for highlighting challenges facing immigrant workers in Vermont [“Risky Business: Housing Violations Involving a Fast-Growing Vermont Roofing Company Expose Role of Immigrants in the Trades,” December 18]. However, we urge deeper reporting on systemic issues. For example, while the article noted unsafe living conditions, it failed to answer critical questions: Where did these displaced workers go? Are they now unhoused or unemployed? Such omissions risk harming the very individuals whose stories deserve uplift.
Following related coverage by WCAX-TV, one VAAP client — an asylum-seeking survivor of past persecution — was summarily evicted into houselessness from similarly crowded employer-provided housing. Injured during the rushed eviction, our client lost critical legal documents essential to their asylum case. Without asylum status, they cannot access housing assistance or robust workplace protections. Our client’s precarious couch-surfing outcome underscores the dangers of incomplete reporting on immigrant worker housing.
Vermont’s twin crises — housing and workforce shortages — demand thoughtful exploration. Immigrant workers have long filled essential labor gaps yet face barriers such as insufficient wages to cover Vermont’s high housing and health care costs. Incomplete reporting exacerbates immigration disinformation and distracts from the ways welcoming immigrants bolsters Vermont’s economy and supports critical investments. Further, employer-provided housing may be a stopgap and not necessarily reflect malice.
Framing employers as villains without examining systemic factors hinders meaningful solutions. We urge Seven Days to explore solutions — affordable housing, livable wages, worker protections and immigration services — and amplify voices of immigrant and local workers alike for more equitable and informed coverage.
Jill Martin Diaz
Burlington
Jill Martin Diaz is the executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project.
Save Old Forests
[Re “Clear-Cut?: Climate Crisis Spawns a Push to Ban Logging in the Green Mountain National Forest,” August 18, 2021]: The U.S. Forest Service recently released its final proposal for Telephone Gap, and it’s a doozy for air, water, wilderness and biodiversity. This 10,959-acre logging plan would overwhelmingly target mature and old forests, including 691 acres of old growth and 1,800 acres in one of Vermont’s largest unprotected roadless areas. While the Forest Service and its allies at Vermont Natural Resources Council and Audubon Vermont push a narrative that Telephone Gap would “balance” conservation and resource extraction, any truly balanced approach would simply leave alone this rare, intact island of mature and old forest.
Research shows that unmanaged forests store more carbon, more effectively buffer flooding and are more climate resilient than managed forests. Research is also clear that Vermont needs much more old forest in the landscape. Ninety-one percent of all the acreage slated to be cut at Telephone Gap is classified as “old” or “mature,” including 691 acres of official inventoried old growth dating back as early as 1861. With only 0.3 percent of New England forestland over 150 years old, it is hard to overstate what an important opportunity Telephone Gap presents to protect old forests — and avoid releasing an estimated 254,556 metric tons of CO2.
The Forest Service, VNRC and Audubon may be digging in their heels for more reckless logging on our public lands, but there is still time to save Telephone Gap. To that end, anyone can submit objections to Vermont’s congressional delegation, the White House and the Forest Service until January 17.
Chris Gish
Cambridge
Partisan Project?
Why would any media operation that considers itself objective think it is OK to accept money from overtly partisan individuals who have tried to use their money to influence Vermont politics in the past? I am referring to the so-called “Ways and Means” endeavor announced by Seven Days publisher Paula Routly [From the Publisher: “Introducing ‘Ways and Means,’” January 8].
This project is presented as a look/investigation into how the Vermont legislature “is working.” According to Seven Days, the project is funded by two Vermont philanthropists. In actuality, they are wealthy individuals with partisan politics whose influence is amplified by their wealth. Besides the fact that any funding from partisan sources right or left calls into question the objectivity of any journalist enterprise that accepts them, the acceptance of said funds goes against accepted journalistic ethics. Or are journalistic ethics not a thing anymore? Even if the reporter(s) involved in this project try to be objective, the source of the money used to fund it will make it appear otherwise.
Ron Jacobs
Winooski
Editor’s note: The idea for “Ways and Means,” to scrutinize the legislature, came from Seven Days — not the two Vermonters who are supporting it financially. We pitched it to them. Countless U.S. media organizations, including Seven Days, VTDigger and Vermont Public, accept donations from opinionated philanthropists to fund their journalism. Our collective donors span the political spectrum, and some choose to be anonymous. The difference, in this case: We are naming Bruce Lisman and Paul Ralston, being transparent about their backstories, and explaining what their involvement means for the reporting produced by the project: nothing
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This article appears in The Wellness Issue 2025.
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