‘My Heart Breaks’

My heart breaks for everyone involved in this tragic episode [“‘I’m Not Well’: A Young Man’s Battle With Mental Illness Led to a Spasm of Violence in Milton,” October 1]. Another horrific act of gun violence. There has to be a way to balance Second Amendment rights without losing another life to gun violence. The system is not working. Someone with such a clear, well-documented mental health history should not be able to pay cash for guns. It’s the guns.

‘Same Dollars, Same Rules’

[Re “School Speculation: Cabot and Danville School Boards Feel Pressure to Act on State Senator’s Advice,” October 1]: Thanks to Alison Novak for her gritty reporting on the astoundingly inappropriate behavior by Vermont Sen. Scott Beck (R-Caledonia), which unfortunately has come to be expected from him. After my colleague on Friends of Vermont Public Education, Geo Honigford, filed an ethics complaint against him in June, Beck was quoted in a story by Lola Duffort on Vermont Public as saying: “Guilty as charged. I stuck up for my kids in my area.” This flies in the face of the Common Benefit clause of the Vermont Constitution: Any government service — education being the only one singled out in our Constitution — must provide benefits equally to all Vermonters, not any select group such as “my kids in my area.”

It shouldn’t be much of a stretch to presume Beck is familiar with our Constitution, so the inescapable conclusion is that he chooses to ignore that clause. Friends’ mission is to ensure that any school receiving tax dollars must adhere to the same rules as others — “Same Dollars, Same Rules” — such as accepting all students, regardless of needs, and showing the public how our tax dollars are being spent. Yet Beck and fellow Sen. Seth Bongartz (D-Bennington) blatantly and successfully pushed for huge carve-outs for private schools — with which they have long-standing strong ties — while serving on the conference committee of H.454 at the end of the last legislative session. 

Enough is enough. It is past time to level the playing field for all students and taxpayers in Vermont.

In-Office Mandate Is a Step Back

[“Remote Control: State Employees Push Back Against Gov. Scott’s Plan to Make Employees Who Work at Home Return to the Office,” October 1]: Gov. Phil Scott’s new requirement that state employees return to the office three days a week risks undermining one of Vermont’s biggest workforce strengths: remote work.

Remote work has proven its value. It expands access to state careers for rural residents and Vermonters with mobility challenges. It supports gender equity by helping parents — especially women — remain and advance in the workforce. It also keeps employees living and spending in towns across the state, while cutting carbon emissions.

From a hiring standpoint, remote work makes Vermont competitive even when salaries aren’t. We recently hired a senior analyst from Walmart who took a 50 percent pay cut — because flexibility mattered more than money.

Research shows high performers are between 400 and 800 percent more productive in complex roles — and they thrive when given autonomy and trust, which remote work provides. Vermont cannot afford to lose these top contributors.

The stakes are high: By fiscal year 2029, more than 20 percent of Vermont’s classified workforce will be retirement-eligible. We can’t afford policies that push people out just as we need to retain talent.

During and after COVID-19, Vermont showed remote work could succeed in government. Rolling it back now is a step backward. Remote work isn’t a perk — it’s a fiscally responsible, equity-driven strategy that strengthens Vermont’s public service and future workforce.

Fairchild is a compensation analyst for the Vermont Department of Human Resources.

The Power of Theater

Vermont has a robust history of spirited, creative and relevant-to-its-time community-based theater dating back more than a century. A once-vibrant Montpelier Theater Guild, of which I was a member, claimed that it vied with Providence Players (circa 1915) to be the oldest “guild” in the nation. Where the old impulses wind down, the new spring up. We are lucky for this bounty.

Thank you for your publication of regional theater reviews. I read them to make a decision about what to attend. Sometimes I read them simply to enjoy the prose of your reviewers, such as Alex Brown, as she navigates a play’s unfolding with specificity and depth [Theater Review: Come From Away, October 8; Theater Review: The Garbologists, October 1].

Theater binds actors to one another and reaches out to conjoin an audience, a benison when so much now pulls us apart. Seven Days is a nexus that helps to make that happen. Please keep the reviews coming.

The Right Direction

Thanks for “Ways and Means: Legislation, STAT!” [September 3]. This focused on how health care legislation not being the main show in the building last year allowed the House and Senate health care committees to quietly get through several bills to hopefully lower our crazy-high health care costs — things like reference-based pricing, the cap on hospital outpatient prescription drug prices and more regulatory authority for the Green Mountain Care Board.

These excellent bills will no doubt slow down the blackmail of our atrocious costs. I applaud both committees and their chairs for the rare courage of standing up to the seemingly omnipotent power of the hospitals and insurance companies to get their way like they usually do, courtesy of these atrocious fees and rates they charge us.

Yet we should remember that these bills do not address the most basic and fundamental flaws of our perverted health care nonsystem. That Rep. Alyssa Black (D-Essex), chair of the House Health Care Committee, is “bracing to go without health insurance next year … because of high monthly premiums” is because we have consigned our health care, and thus our lives, to the inhumanity of profit and monopoly power.

Someday, I would love to see that same courage displayed once again to do what we’ve perennially tried to avoid doing to favor the industry: a publicly financed health care system that covers all Vermonters.

Poor Spokesperson

I found the quote from the Department for Children and Families regarding compiling legislative reports very concerning [“Filed and Forgotten: Years After Trying to Cut Back on the Number of Reports It Commissions, Vermont’s Legislature Is Ordering Up More Than Ever,” August 6]. Under no circumstances should compiling a legislative report have any impact on the ability of DCF to investigate cases of child maltreatment in a timely manner. If an active DCF child maltreatment investigator were also assigned to compiling a legislative report, that would raise questions about DCF’s present organizational structure. I think the same could be said for the SNAP example. I hope this is nothing more than a couple of not-so-great examples to show the challenges agencies and departments face in compiling legislative reports.

A better example might have been if DCF staff have less time working on a new juvenile justice facility to replace Woodside or less time to participate in efforts to improve access for SNAP recipients to buy products at their local farmers market. Let’s not blame the messenger here. You have to wonder how this got past the DCF commissioner, Agency of Human Services secretary and the office of Gov. Phil Scott, which strikes me as a lack of support for the person interviewed.

DCF is one the most challenged departments in state government. We should hope that its administrative time is not being spent compiling legislative reports that are no longer useful or not read.

‘Adopt’ a Homeless Person

[Re “Scott Vows to Help Burlington Amid Public Safety ‘Crisis,’” September 11, online; “Is Homelessness a Local Matter? Many of the People Evicted From the State’s Motel Program Now Live in Tents. The Governor Says That’s a Municipal Issue,” August 27; “Burlington Council Approves Plan to Step Up Enforcement in City Hall Park,” August 26, online; “Tent City,” August 13]: There are thousands of homeless people in Vermont — millions across the country. The cost of living is so high the numbers will only increase. It’s not just the responsibility of politicians and social workers; we citizens can generate many ideas.

Some countries have converted old train cars into housing, and others have made comfortable homes out of shipping containers. In Vermont, there are many trailer parks, and nearly every one of them has empty trailers in it, not to mention the number of empty houses throughout the state. People need a roof over their heads and an address before they can find work.

I’ve heard of programs where a person can adopt a star or adopt a highway. How about adopt a homeless person? He or she doesn’t have to live with us — we don’t even need to know their names or stories — but we can help.

An old student of mine is homeless, living in a car with his mother and their four beloved dogs. Once a month my friends and I bring them gift cards, dog food, snacks. They don’t think they can survive another Vermont winter. He says, “If only we had a garage to park the car in.” My elderly friends and I don’t have that to offer, but someone in Vermont might.

Deal With Drugs

I’ve been reading Seven Days’ coverage of homeless issues over the past few years with interest. One thing that seems to be missing is a strategy to block, or at least slow, the flow of drugs into Vermont. Drug use is constantly mentioned as something that creates and maintains homelessness, causes many deaths, and undermines public safety and order.

So, what is being done about the availability of illegal drugs? Obviously, with the high rate of deaths from drug use, drug dealers need to keep recruiting new users to maintain their business, so drugs aren’t just a threat to current users.

‘Working’ Farm

I read your article on Shelburne Farms [“A New Heyday,” September 17]. I was born on the Webb estate in 1954, when it was still a “working farm.” My father was a herdsman/groomer for the Webbs. We lived next to the Breeding Barn in a small row of apartments that was provided by the Webbs.

My mother is 95 years old and probably one of the last to remember our life on the farm. I remember my dad telling stories about life on the estate. I am not sure how many people were employed by the Webb estate, but it was an opportunity for many people. The Webbs were good people who truly cared about the livestock and environment.

I now live in Charlotte, N.C., but every trip I make to Vermont, I go back to my roots being born on the most prestigious farm in the country. My mom still tells me stories of that time. Thank you for this article.

SHELBURNE FARMS IS A ‘MASTERPIECE’

I thank Seven Days for highlighting the work of the later Webb family to transform Shelburne Farms into a masterpiece of environmental conservation, sustainable living and conscious farm practices [“A New Heyday,” September 17]. As the writer alludes, there was the public perception that the family has endless wealth and could take care of the land without public involvement.

Back in 1975 or 1976, Vermont’s cadre of several dozen artists-in-residence were invited to Shelburne Farms for a weeklong creative retreat at the partially repaired Big House. I was surprised that Emily Wadhams Webb did most of the cooking and that she and Marshall Webb were totally hands-on from early morning until the end of the day. Their generosity and openness engaged all of us in warm and intelligent conversation.

Later, my personal friendship allowed me more insights into the family and Marshall’s ideas about the future of the farm.

Graffiti Cover-Up

[Re “Tag, Who’s It?: Burlington City Officials Have Few Strategies to Crack Down on Unsightly Graffiti,” October 8]: I support fining the property owners if they don’t remove the tags within a short number of days. Initially it will be costly, however as it continues and tags repeatedly get covered up, taggers will start to bear the cost of buying spray paint, and they won’t want to bother much anymore. I lived in the downtown core of Burlington for eight years, in a building that had repeated tags. However, there was a cleanup crew that would paint over it every time I reported it to SeeClickFix. As it got repeatedly covered up, the tagging became less frequent.

The reasons for these tags are not just to be mischievous but also to signal drug turf to each other, which is a major reason they should be eliminated. This is not just “street art.” It’s establishing territory for crime. This is why I knew the wall across from Memorial Auditorium would be tagged very quickly, because it’s been used for so long for this reason.

If you decide to deal with this problem, it definitely needs to be a new normal that you incorporate into your daily life as a property owner: Expect that your property will be tagged, and go out with paint and paint over it immediately. That’s the only way this will be solved — a daily effort that becomes routine, not an afterthought. If every business owner and property owner did this, it would be successful.

This article appears in Oct 15-21 2025.

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