Letters to the Editor (2/5/25)

‘Who Will Make the Movie?’

Joe Sexton scored a journalistic triumph with “Year of the Dogs” [January 29]. The piece reads like a page-turning thriller. I couldn’t put it down until I got to the end. His backstories of the University of Vermont men’s soccer national championship capture the incredible chemistry of this legendary team. It’s a sports story and a glory story for all humanity. Who will make the movie?

Bravo, Cats. Bravo, Joe. Bravo, Seven Days.

Michael Caldwell

North Wolcott

Museum Piece

[Re “History Center’s New Research and Exhibition Gallery ‘Tells the Story of Vermont,’” January 22]: On page 45 of your January 22 edition, the article about the Vermont History Center contains a picture of the Renault toy car given to Vermont by France as a part of the Merci Train after World War II. Your readers might be interested to know that the actual Merci Train boxcar is on display in the Vermont Veterans Militia Museum and Library at Camp Johnson in Colchester. As a member of the museum staff, I have spoken with visitors who say that the museum’s boxcar is one of the best-preserved Merci Train boxcars they have seen.

The museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The phone number is 338-3360.

Paul Libby

South Burlington

Global Concerns

[Re “Burlington Council Blocks Pro-Palestine Item From Ballot,” December 17, 2024, online]: This newspaper covered the disgraceful decision by the Democrat-controlled council in Burlington to block the apartheid-free community pledge from going on the ballot this March, but I was disappointed to see the lack of coverage for the fact that Winooski’s city council unanimously voted to put the same pledge on the ballot in the Onion City.

It is natural that Vermont’s biggest city gets greater coverage than its neighbors, but Burlington prides itself on being a progressive and forward-thinking city, and so it is worth making public the fact that on this issue Burlington remains distinctly behind the curve in Vermont. Last year, Burlington’s city council likewise rejected a ceasefire resolution, with Democratic councilors insisting that it was “too divisive” and not a local issue. Yet at the same time, many towns, including my own, passed similar motions at their town meeting.

Like other Vermont towns, Burlington has a long history of engaging in international issues, including the dirty wars in South and Central America and nuclear arms buildup in the 1980s. When opponents of the ballot measure spoke at the December council meeting, they spoke as if the pledge had no precedent in Vermont. The sad reality is, however, that while Vermont’s tradition of speaking out on issues of global concern lives strong, it is the Burlington City Council that lags behind.

Adam Franz

Shelburne

I Am Woman

[Re “Sticky Situation: A Proposed Burlington Ordinance Would Let People Sue Over Hateful Graffiti and Stickers. First Amendment Lawyers Have Concerns,” November 6, 2024]: As an expectant mother, I think a lot about the issue of pumping in the workplace, and one thing is for sure: If I do take that path, I will be a woman and a person while I do it. I often hear stances like Marianne Ward’s and the stickerers’ framed as “defending women” and “protecting children” [Feedback: “Support the Stickerers,” December 11, 2024]. But I don’t see how anyone who doesn’t think the term “person” applies to me can provide my daughter, or myself, with any protection that matters.

Carolyn Provine

Cabot

Focus on Unhoused

I am so glad that the situation at Decker Towers has improved [“‘It Feels Safe’: After Fighting to Win Their High-Rise Back, Decker Towers Residents Gather for Karaoke, Fellowship,” January 8]. We all deserve to feel safe at home.

However, I am disappointed that Seven Days continues to discuss the comfort of housed individuals while not discussing the safety of unhoused individuals. I will share an excerpt from Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom, by Jeremy Waldron:

“Even the most desperately needy are not always paralyzed by want. There are certain things they are physically capable of doing for themselves. Sometimes they find shelter by occupying an empty house or sleeping in a sheltered spot … Their physical condition is certainly not comfortable, but they are capable of acting in ways that make things a little more bearable for themselves. Now one question we face as a society … is whether we are willing to tolerate an economic system in which large numbers of people are homeless. Since the answer is evidently, ‘Yes,’ the question that remains is whether we are willing to allow those who are in this predicament to act as free agents, looking after their own needs, in public places — the only space available to them. It is a deeply frightening fact about the modern United States that those who have homes and jobs are willing to answer ‘Yes’ to the first question and ‘No’ to the second.”

Several unhoused neighbors have died due to exposure in recent weeks. We need to shift our concerns about safety to those who are most unsafe and not vilify their autonomy.

Amelia McClure

Burlington

Bad Timing

I am confused and dismayed about what is going on with the Burlington Housing Authority and why it would stop Section 8 vouchers before Congress acts [“Housing Authority Pulls Scores of Rent Subsidies,” January 9, online]. We are in the middle of winter, and we have had deaths in the homeless community. Is it impossible to at least wait and see what happens in Congress and until the weather is warmer?

Let’s trust in our Vermont representatives to Congress and give them a chance to do their job before inflicting suffering on these folks on the waiting list who are in shelters looking for housing.

Dianne Pierson, MD

Burlington

Editor’s note: This week’s cover story is about the winter challenges of Vermont’s unhoused population. Seven Days reporter Derek Brouwer and Vermont Public’s Liam Elder-Connors found many perilous situations but no evidence that anyone “living rough” in Vermont has died of exposure so far this season.

Rodgers Rules

Vermont has a new No. 2: John Rodgers. Our January 22 cover story, “Man at Work,” took a look at the gun-toting hemp farmer who ousted former incumbent lieutenant governor David Zuckerman. Rodgers’ views on climate change, hunting and gun rights generated a flurry of reader feedback.

Thank you, Seven Days, for your cover story on John Rodgers, Vermont’s new lieutenant governor. That he threw in his lot with the increasingly racist, traitorous and hateful Republicans tells me all I need to know.

Brian Walsh

Jericho

When I heard the Vermont Public interview with John Rodgers, he dismissed the idea of climate change and minimized its significance. It was then I knew that he would be dangerous for the future of Vermont, the people and the environment.

Climate change has brought us floods, drought, and insect vectors of eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile virus. It enables agricultural and forest pest species to extend their range north into Vermont and damage our crops, sugaring industry, apple crop and forestry endeavors. Rodgers may not understand the relationships among those factors and therefore may ignore the dangers.

I don’t mind his affinity for firearms. I’d like to invite him to do some precision paper target shooting with me at the Hammond Cove public shooting range in Hartland.

His ignorance of climate change and the danger it poses for the many middle school students I taught from 1987 to 2012 in Hartford is what concerns me most. I hope he will be a fast learner in the legislature for a more rational understanding of the threats to our state.

PS: I’m a flatlander from Pennsylvania with a degree in agriculture and entomology from Penn State, in Vermont since only 1984. Please serve us well, Mr. Rodgers.

Michael Quinn

Windsor

Really, Seven Days? You’re joining the parade of media coverage of the aggrieved white male and his wounded masculinity struggling against all the naysayers trying to take away his toys — I mean guns — and how he deserves more attention and uplifting in the face of unjust pressures on his “heritage”? John Rodgers proclaiming himself to be a victim of “cultural genocide” is right up there with the felonious, rapist White House resident’s diatribes against civil rights work and how it’s “immoral” to advocate for equity and racial justice.

Rodgers’ reference to a colleague as a “snippy little bitch” has undeniable echoes with Republican attacks against the “nasty women” of the world who dare to challenge presumptions of privilege and white male oppression and should give anyone pause as to Rodgers’ fitness for office. I know it’s fashionable now among Republicans to hate on women, immigrants and people of color. Heck, it’s required. And Rodgers’ divisiveness has generated a boatload of Republican money for Rodgers and Gov. Phil Scott. Huzzah for them.

But Mr. Rodgers should know that per an executive department proclamation signed by Gov. Scott in May 2024, it is his job as a state leader to “denounce prejudice and welcome all persons regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender identity or expression, age, or disability and to protect those classes to the fullest extent of the law.” And I suspect this includes people who don’t necessarily get a lot of kicks out of killing things with guns.

Rachel Daley

Charlotte

Lt. Gov. John Rodgers’ display of “rural racism” is unbefitting for a senior government official who works on behalf of all Vermonters and professes to respect “people from a wide range of backgrounds.” I seem to have missed the part of the Vermont Constitution that gives more rights if your family lived here for generations and says that everyone else, especially “recent arrivals,” needs to take their place quietly in the back of the bus.

Traditions are not static; they change over time. Dog and cock fighting were traditions now recognized as animal abuse and made a felony. Trapping was once needed for survival. But there is no legitimate need in the 21st century for trapping wildlife, in painful ways, so someone can kill them for recreation or fur.

The Fish & Wildlife Department’s own survey states that the greatest instances of “disapproval exceeding approval, are trapping for recreation [68% to 26%]” and “fur clothing [62% to 31%].”

Beavers are once again being trapped for their fur to make cowboy hats. The Fish & Wildlife Department reports over 1,300 beavers trapped in the 2023-24 season. Beavers excel at creating wetland habitats that store and slow down water flow — a benefit at a time when Vermont communities are being ravaged by flooding. What is the logic in continuing to trap them for recreation or fur?

It’s a great soundbite for Rodgers to say we need to govern for the “benefit of all Vermonters.” In reality, his definition of “all Vermonters” is limited to his political base.

Barbara Felitti

Huntington

Felitti is a board member of the Vermont nonprofit Protect Our Wildlife.

Seven Days reporter Kevin McCallum chose the word “fluke” to describe John Rodgers’ win, saying his victory may have been one in part due to “voters’ weariness with [David] Zuckerman.” Isn’t that literally the definition of a representative democracy? When you don’t like the person in office, you use your vote to choose someone different.

Johanna Polsenberg

Stannard

Editor’s note: McCallum did not call Rodgers’ electoral victory a “fluke.” He posed it as one of two options. He wrote: “But does a wisecracking, mustachioed snowplow driver with a safe full of guns and a freezer full of pot really represent the new middle of Vermont politics? Or was Rodgers’ victory a fluke, attributable more to an infusion of cash from wealthy Republican donors, the vocal support of a popular governor, and voters’ weariness with Zuckerman and progressive policies he’s long championed?”

I can already tell how not funny I think the new lieutenant governor is. If he is unable to recall leaving an AR-15-style rifle, scope and high-capacity magazine out and uses it to get rid of “pests,” his so-called humor illustrates a complete lack of awareness that these weapons of war are used to murder innocent children and their educators across our country on a regular basis.

Rodgers makes the Second Amendment argument, written when the gun of choice was a musket, against sane and sensible gun laws. That’s a bad joke, in my book.

Janet Green

Burlington

Regarding your good cover article on the new Republican lieutenant governor, I understand that Google just said it will indulge the new Republican president’s fantasies and start calling it the “Gulf of America.”

I suggest that before Vermont ends up with a trifecta of Republican government, like poor Missouri, Seven Days should establish the first weekly alternative-facts humor competition.

Here’s an opening entry:

Police were called to a Las Vegas casino, where they found Donald Trump engaged in an escalating argument with the guy running the roulette wheel over what Trump considered to be an odd number.

Robert Spottswood

South Burlington