Missing Credit

Thank you for your article on 40 years of the Vermont International Film Festival, a great Burlington institution [“Now Showing: After 40 Years, Thousands of Movies and a Near-Death Experience, the Vermont International Film Foundation Is Helping Fill a Cinematic Void in Burlington,” October 15]! A significant player worth noting from VTIFF’s early days was left out of your story: Lorraine B. Good-Samsom became the executive director in 1989 and took the festival to new heights during her tenure of seven or eight years.

Originally a Montréaler, Lorraine had been the executive director of Telefilm Canada in Los Angeles, giving her connections to Hollywood and beyond. She followed her husband, Karl, to Vermont and quickly embraced this community. Lorraine brought her connections, insider knowledge, endless energy and enthusiasm to the job and VTIFF. She convinced prominent actors, writers and directors to attend the festival and connected with like-minded film festivals in Italy, Japan and elsewhere.

Tragically, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which she battled for several years until her death in 2001 at the age of 52. A room at Burlington’s BCA Center is dedicated to her memory. Lorraine was a hard act to follow, but fortunately VTIFF has had and continues to have strong leadership to take it into the future.

Bring Back Brunelle

I was delighted to see Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr.’s cartoon of the ominous AI being in the Tech Issue [October 22]. I would love to see Seven Days continue to carry Robert’s cartoons every week.

Why Protest?

Along with thousands of others, my husband, daughter and I went down to the Burlington “No Kings” day to exercise our right to free speech and to peacefully assemble [“Thousands Say ‘No Kings’ at Protests Across Vermont,” October 18, online]. The crowd filled Burlington City Hall Park with a festival atmosphere, colorful signs, music, chanting, and not a hint of anger or threat. It was the same at all the other nationwide rallies — no incidents of violence or threat.

Why did we go? We went to use our voice and our presence to shine a light on what’s happening to our country. We went to defend the Constitution. To defend our democracy. To protect voting rights. To reject dictatorship. To demand the rule of law to be upheld. To reject our military being deployed against us as citizens. To protect our neighbors, friends, legal immigrants, people of color from being detained and deported without recourse to legal assistance. To get government to stop dictating what we do in our own personal lives.

We want to be able to afford health care and food and housing. We want jobs with a living wage. We want to stop our taxes going to billionaires. We want people to wake up before it’s too late. We went down there, and we will keep going, speaking out, and showing up for fairness, justice and basic human dignity.

‘Downstream’ Effect

[Re “Vorsteveld Farm Faces New Pollution Lawsuit,” October 16, online]: As a multigeneration Vermonter born and raised in Irasburg, I have farming in my blood. My family and my neighbors took pride in working the small-scale farms in our corner of the Northeast Kingdom and strived to be good stewards of the land that we relied on for our livelihoods. Folks intuitively knew that their actions had an impact downstream, down the road and beyond.

As time has passed, the small farms I knew as a boy have closed. Farms have gotten bigger and bigger, buying up the smaller operations that used to dot the landscape. When my family and I were directly impacted by the toxic pollution coming from the megafarm next door, I felt betrayed.

In 2016 my dad passed away. We still own the farm and couldn’t sell even if we wanted to because we don’t have a potable water source, thanks to the 29 years of groundwater contamination. This is what megafarms and their operators bring to our communities. This hasn’t just been a blow for me and my family financially; it’s also a blow to the sense of community that I believed was the bedrock of being a Vermonter. I was taught growing up that we needed to take care of each other, and that meant collectively taking care of our land and making sure that it stayed healthy and fertile for future generations.

My family no longer farms for a living — I work in the heavy construction industry, still based in northern Vermont — but I continue to take the health and vitality of my community seriously. Polluting public waters and neighboring properties runs counter to the Vermont ethic. We can’t let what happened to my family happen to others.

Burlington Yeasayer

It’s clear that there are issues in downtown Burlington that have caused a significant amount of concern for those who frequent the Queen City and, unfortunately, for those who do not. I am not one of the naysayers. Yes, I understand the concerns, but I am far from buying into the “I am afraid to visit Church Street” crowd.

My wife and I were having lunch at Halvorson’s Upstreet Café recently, on an absolutely perfect afternoon. We were walking down Church Street, back to our car, and I asked her: “What is wrong with this picture?” The answer was “Nothing!” It was just perfect.

This brings me to the October 8 “From the Publisher” column about people from out of the area having the opportunity to see Burlington and Vermont through, as you said, “fresh eyes.” This struck me as so simple and, at the same time, so very powerful! This happens virtually every day as people visit our area, often for the first time. We all know that it is human nature to take for granted that which we see and experience every day, but it is nice to be reminded.

I thought the piece was especially timely and refreshing, with a message that was particularly on point. Thank you for your excellent insight!

‘Burlington Is a Cesspool’

[Re “Tent City,” August 13]: I went to school in Newark, Del. — a college town roughly the size of Burlington with a Main Street comparable to Church Street. On a recent visit to Delaware, I noticed bustling activity at 9 a.m. on a six-block stretch with one-way auto traffic. Restaurants, banks, bakeries and retail businesses were all open. The one thing I could not find was homeless people, drug addicts or beggars with cardboard signs at corners. When I asked a lifelong resident about this, he seemed puzzled by the question.

Burlington’s problems could be solved by doing exactly what the blue state of Delaware has been doing for years. It is outlined in President Donald Trump’s “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” order. Since Trump Derangement Syndrome has captured our legislature, Vermont is unable to use this commonsense approach. Burlington has decided to prioritize junkies and criminals over children and business owners.

I have been doing a rideshare for nine years in the early morning hours in Burlington. I have just recently heard visitors ask where it is safe, college students saying they can’t wait to get out and hardworking people complaining about crackheads beating on their apartment door in the middle of the night.

Burlington is a cesspool and an embarrassment. People are allowed to deal dangerous narcotics out of subsidized and free housing at all hours of the day and night. Unless we start arresting and imprisoning people who have made it this way, it will not change.

Stop ‘Enabling’ Offenders

[Re “Tag, Who’s It? Burlington City Officials Have Few Strategies to Crack Down on Unsightly Graffiti,” October 8]: While it’s very nice that Burlington citizens are volunteering to clean up public spaces, picking up trash and needles, cleaning graffiti, etc., it also seems a bit like Mommy and Daddy following the offenders around, picking up after them. In other words, enabling.

Burlington needs a system of accountability for offenders. Certainly, as a retired drug and alcohol counselor, I’d been told many times by clients that accountability played a part in their getting sober.

I suggest reinvigorating the community justice program whereby offenders are ticketed when witnessed discarding trash and needles or found to be guilty of tagging or in any other way vandalizing community and private property, with the “fine” being that they have to do the cleanup/make restitution. Of course, for those addicted to drugs and alcohol, there should also be mandatory participation in treatment. In the past, the probation and parole offices have mandated treatment to criminal offenders, so it’s not a new idea. Though it has been controversial over the years, I have witnessed it being the final factor that motivated people to enter recovery. And it may not only be addiction recovery that we’re talking about but also counseling for other problems that fuel negative social behaviors.

Of course, this would mean investing money in community justice and treatment programs. Programs that don’t punish but teach accountability and responsibility to the community and support healthy growth are a good investment and would have a long-term positive impact.

You Forgot the Word ‘Illegal’

I have some comments on [“Standing By: Vermonters Who Fear Deportation Are Lining Up Legal Guardians for Their Children,” September 24]. The very first paragraph erroneously leaves out one critical word in describing the administration’s immigration crackdown. Your editors should have caught it. That word is “illegal.”

President Donald Trump, and by extension U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have no interest, I am sure, in deporting immigrants who have green cards or have been granted asylum, like the Venezuelan couple in your article.

ICE is after those thousands, possibly millions, of people who have arrived through no legal process and have run afoul of the law, often many times. Some have been deported before and found their way back. Many have not shown up for status hearings.

It is a sad state that this couple should feel concerned. I also believe that the press in general has played a role in amplifying that concern through inaccurate reporting.

Protect Rural Hospitals

Your June 12 article, “Scott Signs Bill Capping Drug Prices at Vermont Hospitals,” describes a necessary intervention in runaway drug markups. However, the piece understates how this policy might stress rural hospitals and worsen health inequities across Vermont.

Specialty drugs, such as those used to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases, often carry enormous costs. Vermont hospitals currently charge markups that are among the highest in the nation, at more than five times the manufacturer’s average sales price. The new law limits charges to 120 percent of that price, which will provide substantial relief to insurers and patients. Blue Cross Blue Shield, for example, is projected to save $46 million annually, lowering rate increases for employers and schools.

Yet these savings come at a cost. Hospital leaders warn they may lose millions of dollars in revenue and be forced to cut staff or shutter services. Legislative testimony projected that an $8.8 million reduction would equate to a 12.5 percent workforce loss — or roughly 125 to 150 full-time positions — while many rural hospitals would need to close infusion centers. Without safeguards such as state subsidies for rural hospitals or tiered reimbursement models, the policy risks weakening access to care in communities that already struggle with shortages.

Vermont’s cap is a bold step forward, but lawmakers must pair it with structural protections to prevent unintended harm to patients and providers alike.

Volunteer Labor

Successful nonprofits rely heavily on volunteers, and Shelburne Farms is no exception [“A New Heyday: How the Family Behind Shelburne Farms Bootstrapped a Crumbling Gilded Age Estate Into a Beacon of Sustainability Education,” September 17]. In vain, I searched your article for acknowledgement of the countless volunteers who have contributed to the farm’s success. Who wound the tower clock? Who kept the gardens weeded? Who shepherded visitors through the inn for Mother’s Day tours?

Since the 1980s, thousands of visitors to the farm have learned about its mission while taking a tour. For more than a decade, I was one of a cadre of volunteer tour guides. At our weekly meetings, specialists from horticulturist Del Sheldon to architect Martin Tierney shared their expertise. Given access to archival materials, historian Shirley Murray read entries from Eliza “Lila” Vanderbilt’s journals, wherein her romance with William Seward Webb unfolded. With visitors eager to understand the Vanderbilt connection, I wrapped up tours with a condensed account of the wily and driven Commodore and how his granddaughter Lila and her beau came to choose Vermont.

To this day, the moment I set foot on the farm, I am ready to launch into a discourse on the ideal qualities of Brown Swiss cows, the architectural oddities of the Coach Barn, Webb’s love of all things equine and Frederick Law Olmsted’s principles of landscaping.

May this letter pay tribute to volunteers everywhere who keep the gears turning, sometimes literally. House tours were given by the delightful cast of tour guides, Birgit pulled the weeds, and (correct me if I’m wrong, Shirley) it was George who wound the clock.

This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4 2025.

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