Letters to the Editor (2/19/25)

Defending Bliss

[Re Feedback: “‘Upsetting’ Comic,” January 29]: The whole point of the newspaper is to express people’s differing views — to push us to think about new ideas or ideas that we would rather avoid. I do not have to or even want to like everything I see or read. I myself am a young 77-year-old. I do not know just what cartoonist Harry Bliss had in mind in the January 15 edition of Seven Days. The best part of my day is holding my wife and thanking her for the opportunity. I hope to be able to continue to until death do us part.

Peter Harvey

Adamant

‘Best of the Best’

I just finished reading Joe Sexton’s article on the University of Vermont men’s NCAA Division I national championship victory [“Year of the Dogs,” January 29]. I am a Vermont native and a UVM alum (’75), so this victory was amazingly huge for me and thousands of others. I was totally engaged. Joe’s writing was maybe the best that I have ever enjoyed. The depth of the story, the behind-the-scenes details that were so personal, and the overall blending of game details and player personalities were just exceptional.

I am a conservative Republican, so not your normal demographic, but I love your publication and this article has cemented your legacy in my mind as the best of the best. Congratulations to Joe and to everyone who worked with him to bring this absolutely brilliant story to press!

Steve Salls

Burlington

Trouble in Thailand

Thank you so much for covering this [“Cuts Abroad Hit Home: Trump’s Cancellation of U.S. Foreign Aid Means Lost Contracts and Jobs in Vermont,” February 12]. I’m a native Vermonter but moved to Thailand to work on international development and humanitarian aid. What President Donald Trump is doing is horrific. People are already dying here due to his and Elon Musk’s work. Please continue to cover this impact in Vermont and around the world.

Megan Sullivan

Bangkok, Thailand

Losing Sandy

[Re “Sandy Baird, Fierce Advocate and Lawyer, Dies at 84,” February 10, online]: If anybody wonders what made Burlington the place it is today, it was badass women like Sandy Baird. So much gets attached to the legend of Bernie Sanders, but a host of other trailblazers like Sandy carved a path of moral clarity and wicked style in this town.

An unrelenting fury of human nature, Sandy was a no-holds brawler in heels with a biting wit and zeal who would run you over with a crooked smile and a glint in her eye. She had a minimal filter for the things she said but a maximum one for any bullshit. Anyone who knew her knew that.

My first encounter with Sandy was as a middle school kid coming of age in the 1980s. Later, as a young adult trying to figure out my way, we shared endless car rides to Montpelier and Johnson State College, where we both worked.

In the last decade, on the third floor of the O.N.E. Community Center, at AALV, Sandy became a fierce warrior for countless new Americans. There she helped mostly women who’d been saddled with a host of legal issues while trying to raise their children in an unfamiliar place.

Sandy was a true hometown icon. She was one of the things that make Burlington, with all its off-the-rails challenges these days, still one of the coolest places to live. Her loss will be a cavern-size chasm in the fabric that makes up the soul of this town.

David Lines

Burlington

Unknown Plan?

Thinking Seven Days film critic Margot Harrison might be waiting for the announcements of the Academy Awards nominations, or the winners themselves, I have been waiting with bated breath to read her review of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. While I do not consider myself a film buff by any stretch of the imagination, I often find myself reading her pieces, at least in part, because she can offer such trenchant observations about the cinematic work in question and how it relates to contemporary culture. And, given how this particular movie has engendered such wildly divergent opinions, I am surprised she has not covered it (though perhaps she and the paper feel it’s gotten sufficient attention already?). If I hadn’t written about it myself already on the website All About Jazz, I would offer to devote some verbiage to it myself.

Doug Collette

South Burlington

Better, Not Bigger, Vermont

[Re: “A New Housing Coalition Has a Familiar Face — Miro Weinberger,” January 14]: First the Vermont Chamber of Commerce created the Vermont Futures Project to convince us that a “data-informed” examination of our economic woes requires us to increase the state’s population by 150,000 in the next 10 years to reach a goal of 802,000. Then the Vermont Housing Finance Agency agrees and states that 30,000 houses by 2030 would be necessary to approach that population goal and now nurtures the group Let’s Build Homes.

Let’s Build Homes states that “we must embrace a vision of Vermont’s future that balances our cherished natural beauty with the need for growth.” The Vermont Futures Project provides no data on the environmental impacts of the growth. Neither group addresses how this growth would help us meet the goals of our Global Warming Solutions Act to decrease our greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2030.

What do these two groups have in common? Growing the GDP and the tax base and a disregard for how Vermonters may see their state’s future. The Vermont Futures Project states that “Vermont needs more people; more people need Vermont,” and Let’s Build Homes states that “We hope … to change the way Vermonters think about the future of their state.”

Shouldn’t these groups be interested in what Vermonters really want? I suggest the legislature create a statewide citizens’ assembly to find out. Citizens’ assemblies (citizensassemblies.org) can be more representative and deliberative than public engagement, polls, legislatures or ballot initiatives. Citizens’ assemblies have generally been successful worldwide.

Wolfger Schneider

Charlotte

Use the Church

[Re “In God We Tax: Burlington Officials, Catholic Parish at Odds Over Cathedral’s Tax Status,” February 5]: When looking at the plight of the unhoused in Burlington and a large, unused and untaxed building slated for demolition sitting empty with a chain-link fence surrounding it, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington should consider one simple question: What would Jesus do?

Nate Goldman

Underhill

Ask the Mayor

[Re “Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak Will Prescreen Police Press Releases,” January 9, online]: Understandably, politicians would like to control the message, and a chief of police would be frustrated by the leniency in adjudication of crimes. The skirmishes between Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and Police Chief Jon Murad are not solving anything. Neither has control over the indulgences of the courts or the Chittenden County state’s attorney. They do have to deal with the fallout.

The recent reports of violence have caused concern among many. The optics could suggest the gag order is an attempt to cover up the crime level and the lack of consequences suffered by the perpetrators. As citizens, we have the right to understand the true scope of the criminality and plans to address it.

Affordability, drug addiction and mental health are the topmost contributors to our crime. Mayor, are these problems too big for Burlington alone? What leadership/responsibility should we expect from the state? Regardless of the state’s role, we have a responsibility.

Let’s consider the resources we do have to combat the issues: the police, other city departments/agencies, local businesses, higher education, the medical center, the citizenry and the many nonprofits attempting to deal with these issues. Can we aid success by creating a budget prioritizing efforts to deal with the list above?

As the elected leader, what is your vision? Are there goals and measurable outcomes for your first term?

David McKay

Burlington

Rodgers Wrong About Solar

“Man at Work” [January 22] reports Lt. Gov. John Rodgers’ preferred solutions for climate change are to rely on U.S.-made solar panels and develop more geothermal power. But with fossil fuel pollution contributing to the more devastating and frequent floods we have seen here in Vermont, neither approach can be implemented fast enough on a scale to help avoid ever more such disasters.

Geothermal is an appealing long-term approach with minimal carbon emissions, but with less than 1 percent of the power market today, it will take years to build up the expertise to develop and install large geothermal electrical capacity.

Fortunately, utility-scale solar can be set up relatively quickly, but only if we use solar panels produced by China, which currently produces about 84 percent of worldwide solar panels. We are working on expanding domestic production (we have only 2 percent of worldwide capacity now), but we need to be creating utility-scale solar right now and cannot afford to wait for investors to decide to commit to more production here in the U.S.

As to wind energy, Rodgers incorrectly suggests that carbon emissions from the manufacture and installation of wind turbines outweigh emissions they save over their roughly 30-year lifespans.

Actually, wind turbines generally pay back their manufacturing and operating carbon footprint in under two years.

Please urge Rodgers, Gov. Phil Scott and the legislature to move aggressively on climate solutions that will help save our state from the incredible human and economic costs of going slowly.

Bob Warrington

Burlington

Music Man

I just want to thank Chris Farnsworth for the in-depth story on Sergei Ushakov [Life Story, February 12]. The earlier article/obit was great as well [“On the Beat: RIP, Sergei Ushakov,” January 15]. I knew Sergei both as a working musician and as a personal friend, and I know he’d have been very glad that you talked to his family — wonderful people, all! We’ll always miss him.

Tom Buckley

Winooski