Fact Check

The new owner of WDEV Radio should check the files [“Vermont Radio Stations Seek to Fill the Void Left by CBS News,” June 2, online]. CBS News was added in the past few years. The station was affiliated with the Mutual Broadcasting System and Yankee Network in Boston from the ’40s to the 2000s.

Story Left Me Wondering

I read, then reread, the article on Migrant Justice [“From Farm to Front Line,” May 27]. Nowhere did I see any explanation as to why Migrant Justice was protesting Hannaford. And believe me, I really wanted to know. I like Hannaford.

This is not the first time I’ve read a Seven Days piece where an important piece of information was not backed up with details. My suggestion is to start keeping a closer eye on these articles during editing and ask the questions that readers would be asking when reading a piece.

Time for ‘Barge Canal Park’

[Re “Housing Planned for Property Near Burlington’s Pine Street Barge Canal,” May 26, online]: What we have done to the Pine Street Barge Canal in Burlington is a microcosm of what we have done to the Earth as a whole. In the 19th century, the lumber industry filled in much of the extensive wetlands because it needed more storage. In the 20th century, there was a manufactured gas plant there whose waste products poisoned the land and water. Since 1967, due in part to activism by Burlington residents, the damaged Barge Canal has been largely left to grow wild.

Now we are faced with a choice, for the Earth and the Barge Canal: We can restore a vibrant ecosystem or we can continue to exploit it for profit. Yes, we need housing for our ever-growing human population. But the Barge Canal is surrounded by already-paved surface parking lots that are rarely full. Can we change the paradigm of seeing the natural world as one big vacant lot just waiting for another building? Understanding the history of our destruction, could we decide to nurture this South End green space back to health instead of paving over three acres of it for “development”?

The idea of remediation needs to mean something else besides making land available for exploitation. How can we use this opportunity to create a Barge Canal Park that exemplifies our understanding of the multiple crises we are facing? Not just the housing crisis, real though it is, but the crisis of an ailing planet that we have crippled for our comfort and enrichment.

Military Should Be ‘Moral’

[Re “Brass Tactics: Jasper Craven’s New Book Chronicles a Culture of Abuse in Military Schools and Its Toxic Effects on American Masculinity,” May 13]: I grew up in the environment of military schools. My father taught engineering at Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, and then at Norwich University. On a hot August day, I was horrified to see a cadet at RMC collapse from the heat and lie on his face with a pool of blood gathering around him, as the inspecting officer stepped over him and continued onward. I was 6 years old.

Later, when I was 9 and on my way to school through the Norwich campus, I passed an upperclassman taunting a Black first-year “plebe” by making him do push-ups in an overfull rain gutter along the street, putting his foot between the student’s shoulders to hold him underwater as he tried to raise himself.

(Despite Jasper Craven’s presentation of Alden Partridge as a man of sensitivity when he founded Norwich, I believe there were dark periods in the school’s history when the culture of hazing, domination and humiliation was accepted.)

These and other observed experiences contributed to my lifelong aversion to any national reliance upon compulsory military service and the kind of military culture where stripes or bars on one’s arm gives extraordinary power to people with marginal ethics or questionable character. Authority belongs only to those who demonstrate admirable leadership and morals.

‘Applaud ICE’

I and many other Vermonters that I know have no problem with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wearing masks [“House Bill Does Not Include Mask Rules for Federal Agents,” May 19, online]. I have spoken with many friends and family who feel that any state has the right to dictate what federal law enforcement can or cannot do. We feel that ICE has done a great job in ridding our country of the illegal aliens that were allowed to freely come across our borders during the administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Had they done the job they were supposed to do, protecting our country and borders from illegals, ICE wouldn’t be as prevalent in our states and cities across the country. We applaud ICE for doing what they have done. The people that have been injured or killed as a result of interfering with federal operations placed themselves in the situations that got them injured or killed. They should have left the agents alone to do their jobs.

Love Children?

[Re Feedback: “‘Baby’ Talk,” May 13, in response to “Baby Bust: Vermont’s Birth Rate Is the Lowest in the Nation. Why Aren’t We Having More Kids?” April 29]: I agree with the reader who indicated that population explosion is largely responsible for the mess we’re in now: overcrowding, pressure on the natural environment, and lack of resources, housing and education. We should welcome a balancing of the population.

Also, most of the letter writers seem to believe that every child deserves to live and thrive, and that even legal abortion goes against the teachings of Jesus and God. If you really believe this, and if you support the Donald Trump administration, how can you sit by and watch our government’s participation in genocide? How can you stomach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asking God to make sure every bullet hits its human target? In Iran and Gaza, we and our allies are killing and orphaning children every day with bombs, missiles, lack of crucial medical care and starvation. We are demolishing their homes and schools, murdering their parents, polluting their air and water. They are being willfully deprived of food and medicine.

Over 1,200 species of fish live in the Red Sea, for example, and due to explosions and oil tanker leaks, fishers are losing both their food and their livelihoods. We could end Russia’s brutal crushing of Ukraine with genuine material support. Why don’t the children of Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Ukraine deserve your strong and vocal support via the ballot box? Why are they less important than an unborn fetus? Why are you not shouting from the rooftops that you will not spend your taxpayer dollars on killing them?

Democracy and Disagreement

There was a time in Vermont when self-government was understood not as a slogan but as a responsibility [“Education Reform Efforts Appear Stalled in the Statehouse,” April 8]. Towns governed their own affairs because the people living there would bear the consequences of those decisions. That principle is why local school boards existed in the first place. The closer government remains to the citizen, the stronger republican government becomes.

Forced consolidation turns that principle upside down.

We are constantly told larger districts are “more efficient.” Perhaps some are. Large systems can centralize authority, combine offices, standardize policy and expand administration. But efficiency alone is not the highest virtue in a republic. Government can become more efficient at the very moment it becomes more distant from the people it serves.

A local community understands its own schools, budget and priorities. Citizens know the teachers, buildings, roads and people making decisions. But as governance expands into larger regional bureaucracies filled with committees, consultants, contracts and administrators, public understanding naturally weakens. Complexity itself becomes a barrier to accountability.

And when taxpayers ask hard questions or reject policies handed down from above, they are too often dismissed as obstacles to “progress.” But disagreement is not a flaw in democracy. It is democracy.

As we approach the 250th anniversaries of both the United States and Peacham, Vermonters should ask a fundamental question: Should power remain close to the people or continue moving further away into centralized institutions?

That debate is as old as the republic itself, and now it is our turn to answer it.

Nothing Unethical About It

The recent criticism of five Vermont legislators who participated in an educational trip to Israel says more about today’s political polarization than it does about any ethical failing on their part [Feedback, May 13].

Travel programs for lawmakers are common and exist to help elected officials better understand complex issues firsthand. The suggestion that simply visiting Israel — America’s closest democratic ally in the Middle East — constitutes an ethical violation is unreasonable.

More troubling is the use of inflammatory rhetoric such as “Genocide 5,” a label intended to shame and intimidate rather than encourage thoughtful debate. Vermonters should be able to disagree about Middle East policy without demonizing elected officials.

The letters also assume the lawmakers were incapable of independent thought and merely absorbed “propaganda.” That dismisses their intelligence and integrity. Seeing a country firsthand, speaking with people on the ground and observing the region’s realities directly is more valuable than relying on slogans or social media narratives.

Any honest discussion of the conflict must recognize both Palestinian suffering and Israel’s ongoing security threats, including terrorism and attacks against civilians. Reducing this complex conflict to one-sided accusations does nothing to advance peace or understanding.

The House Ethics Panel reviewed the matter and dismissed the complaints [“Ethics Panel Dismisses Complaints Over Lawmakers’ Trip to Israel,” April 14, online]. That decision deserves respect.

Books — and Words — Matter

I applaud your “Critical Condition” piece in the May 20 issue [From the Publisher]. The dwindling number of book reviews available, and the shrinking number of outlets for their publication, are indeed cause for lamentation. And exacerbating the problem is the tendency of many reviewers to devote more of their reviews to promulgating their own obsessions, or displaying their supposed erudition, than to providing the reader with an informative evaluation of the book at hand.

I especially enjoyed the elegance of expression. Not in every publication, nor in the writing of every publisher, would one encounter a reference to “Salieri-like envy.” This is yet another example of the elevated tone of Seven Days, and of the admirable writing of its publisher.

‘Trap of Self-Sacrifice’

As the current nutritional director of ONE Arts Community School and former chapter chair of Burlington School District support staff, I bring significant pro-union sentiment and experience to this conversation [“Growing Pains: Former Staff Say a Burlington Childcare Center’s Ambitious Expansion Helped Lead to Its Collapse,” May 27].

I think it is crucial to recognize that this situation is happening because the level of emotional investment in the children we care for is supreme — that is true of the former teachers and site directors, the current staff, the leadership, and our community.

However, in this field, there is a systemic trap of self-sacrifice. Because we love these kids, educators often feel pressured to tolerate immense stress and stretch themselves past their emotional breaking points. 

Operating from a place of constant depletion isn’t sustainable and requires new strategies and firm foundations.

A failure to meet our own incredibly high standards under that kind of systemic pressure inevitably causes real emotional fallout.

However, I want to speak to the heart of what is happening at ONE Arts right now. The employees who have chosen to remain are working tirelessly to build stronger, more transparent communication between leadership and staff. 

Rather than walking away, this collective is engaging directly in the hard work of structural improvement through honest, face-to-face communication. We are working alongside new leadership to implement appropriate training and systems to ensure the operational gaps of the past are never repeated.

Correction

Last week’s news story headlined “Fish Out of Water” misidentified the maker of the towering river-goddess puppets. Central Vermont artist Janice Walrafen created them.

This article appears in June 10 • 2026.