All Entries in the "Op-ed" Category
Op-ed: The price we must pay to protect our kids from the proliferation of guns
By Bill Dunkel The U.S. spends $1.73 trillion a year for national defense, but we cannot protect our children from being shot in school. The carnage at Covenant School in Nashville — the 13th school shooting this year — proves again that all children are vulnerable to this madness. Twenty years ago, the gun industry […]
Sen. Clarkson: Priority housing bill comes before House
By Sen. Alison Clarkson What an intense and productive two weeks it has been in the Vermont legislature. Crossover is largely finished and, with it, the passage of many bills from one chamber to the other. Getting this much work, representing the first half of this 2023 session, presented on the floor in each chamber […]
Op-ed: Honor Sunshine Week by requiring hybrid government meetings
By Justin Silverman During the early months of Covid-19, governors in New England states issued executive orders allowing municipalities to meet online so long as the public could attend remotely. The democratic benefits of this arrangement quickly became evident. According to a public official quoted in a 2020 study, the changes “made it a lot […]
Op-ed: Ranked choice voting, sheriff qualifications on agenda in Montpelier
By Sen. Alison Clarkson So much is happening at the Statehouse. Bills are beginning to be passed out of committees at a rapid pace, a new set of pages have arrived, the Budget Adjustment Act is poised for a final vote in the Senate and will probably go to a Conference Committee, and the building […]
Commentary: What will make the shooting stop?
By Nicholas Boke Let’s see where the action is this morning. Ah. A shopping mall in El Paso. Again. Just across the street from the Walmart where 23 people were murdered in 2019. The earlier shooting was racist. There’s no clear motive for this one yet. Better check in on that Michigan State University shooting […]
Op-ed: Senate housing bill targets rehabs, affordable new builds, accessory dwellings
By Sen. Alison Clarkson The Vermont legislature is now deep into the work of our 2023 session. To date, 230 bills have been introduced, committees are taking testimony on various issues, and the priorities we identified before session began are beginning to take shape in legislation. The discussion about the Senate’s 107-page child care bill, […]
Rep. Chase: Small business experience to serve well on House commerce committee
By Rep. Heather Chase The energy in the Statehouse on the opening day of the legislative session on Jan. 4 was palpable. Children, grandchildren, friends and family joined legislators in the House Chamber as we were sworn in. One of my daughters joined me for the big day. I felt honored to be representing the […]
Op-ed: GM founding principal says time is right to change the Chieftain
By Graham Nye ©2023 Telegraph Publishing LLC When the Green Mountain High School was created in 1971, Chester High School teams were known as the Sentinels. As we transitioned from Chester High School to Green Mountain — a task that I played a role as principal of the newly built school — it was determined […]
Sen. Clarkson: Housing a priority as new legislative session in Montpelier begins
By Sen. Alison Clarkson Our 2023 legislative session in Montpelier is off to a fast start. Only two and a half weeks into the session, we’ve already passed our first bill (H.42 which extends remote options for Town Meetings and the Open Meeting law). Committees are meeting and being brought up to speed on the […]
Op-ed: Vermont needs more housing; support necessary changes to state law
By Nicholas Boke All that state Rep. Seth Bongartz (D-Manchester) and his colleagues are doing is facing the fact that lovely Vermont just isn’t what it thinks it is anymore. The bill they’re proposing to enable housing development by banning single-family zoning and allowing duplexes and even three- and four-unit homes in some municipalities just […]
Op-ed: Protecting reproductive rights
By Nicholas Boke I figured that if somebody was handing out glossy anti-Article 22 fliers at the Chester Town Hall on Primary Election Day, there’d be lots of somebodies handing out glossy anti-Article 22 fliers at other voting stations. I was right. The overstated hypotheticals provided in the flier are just the tack that Vermont […]
Op-ed: What DQSH could have meant to my younger self
By Vic Mowschenson ©2022 Telegraph Publishing LLC Drag Queen Story Hour is just what its name sounds like: Drag Queens reading books to children. Usually these events, which have been taking place since 2015, are held in libraries, bookshops and schools. Their mission is to promote open-mindedness by exposing children to gender presentations outside rigid […]
Op-ed: Bills address continuing impacts of Covid
By Sen. Alison Clarkson This year, instead of producing several smaller, focused bills, the Senate Economic Development Committee created one omnibus economic development bill with a wide range of proposals. It took longer than expected to finish and the House Commerce Committee is now considering it. The purpose of the bill is to “address the […]
Op-ed: Legislature faces challenge of housing crisis
By Sen. Alison Clarkson After many long floor sessions debating and passing bills to the other body, the legislature has pretty much completed crossover, that point in the session where all bills that have any chance of making it into law have to be passed from the House to the Senate or vice versa. It […]
Sunshine Week 2022: Government transparency is the key to restoring public trust
By Secretary of State Jim Condos and Deputy Secretary of State Chris Winters Every year we join with government transparency advocates from around the country to celebrate Sunshine Week, March 13 – 19, serving as a reminder that a well-functioning government is built upon the public’s right to know. Good government is open government! Government […]
Op-ed: Rep. Tom Bock on action in Montpelier
Editor’s note: The following column was taken from Rep. Bock’s recent presentation on Town Meeting Day. By Rep. Tom Bock Schools have been operating under advisory guidance from the Agency of Education with authority for school districts to set their own requirements. The most recent AOE guidance, that schools should require universal indoor masking for […]
Op-ed: Senate panel seeks community unity, multi-member districts in remapping
By Sen. Alison Clarkson Every 10 years the results of the national Census requires each state to review the impact of any population change on their electoral districts. The Vermont Constitution requires that our state’s population must be fairly distributed to afford “equality of representation.” Covid delayed the national Census returns and, as a result, […]
Op-ed: Covid exacerbates, highlights inequality of working women
By Kellie Campbell, Ed.D. Vermont Commission on Women If you have been to a restaurant lately, you have probably seen signs on the door about being short-staffed and asking for your patience. Perhaps you are a parent who received a message from your childcare provider about having to close early or shorten hours due to […]
Op-ed: Fixing the state’s public pension system
By Sen. Alison Clarkson When the Pension Benefits, Design, and Funding Task Force was created last year, I was relieved. Our public pension system was in crisis. If we did nothing to fix the problems, Vermont taxpayers were looking at an unfunded pension liability of $4.5 billion, with that liability growing for the teachers and […]
Op-ed: A Q&A with Chester Planning Commission chair Cathy Hasbrouck
In early November of this year, Chester businessman Steve Mancuso, owner of Chester Electric and head of the nascent Chester Business Coalition**, asked a series of questions of Cathy Hasbrouck, chair of the Chester Planning Commission, which is working on updating the town’s bylaws, to clarify recent activities and the general direction of the […]
