The Mill River School District has a serious problem on their hands. Under the leadership of Superintendent David Younce, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has been intentionally circumvented. This is blatantly breaking the law. The story reported in the Rutland Herald explains…

Tuesday evening, a small group of Rutland High students gave a presentation to the Rutland City Public Schools board. Three of the students are seniors and are black.

Most Americans cannot even correctly define “socialism,” yet they have been successfully propagandized into having a knee-jerk aversion to it. Trump and his conservative cohorts in attempting to retain power, are trading on this bias by painting progressives as “socialists.” Ascending politi…

On Tuesday, March 5, Vermonters elected their local government officials on Town Meeting Day.

With the threat of Roe v. Wade being overturned looming over the country, many states are working to restrict or codify an individual’s right to access an abortion.

Reading all of the recent publicity around Mill River Superintendent David Younce takes me back to a very dark time in my life. Some years ago, a very vocal citizen had a personal vendetta against one of our school administrators, and launched a public campaign against that person. At the ou…

Social psychologists are intimately familiar with the ways in which human beings make sense of their social environment, including the explanations we offer about our own behavior and that of others. While we would like to think that our judgments are based in objectivity and “common sense,”…

I have just completed my first year as a Proctor Select Board member. I have learned a great deal about highways, water and sewage, salt sheds and other municipal concerns, however the greatest insight is the awareness that pleasing an entire town is inevitably challenging.

It is an honor to be serving Rutland County in Montpelier as one of your senators and I would like to let you know about some of the bills the Senate has passed in the first two months of the session.

Last week, I listened to the CEO of the Save the Children Action Network (SCAN), an international organization that is building bipartisan political will to invest in kids in the U.S. and abroad. Mark Kennedy Shriver and longtime child advocate and actor Jennifer Garner commended the tri-par…

Across Vermont, students in schools are drinking water contaminated by a potent neurotoxin that experts agree causes irreversible damage to children’s health. That neurotoxin is lead, and it’s likely that most of the students, teachers and staff at these schools don’t even know it’s in their water.

I am writing this letter to ask for your support of my husband, Michel “Champlain” Messier, for Rutland City mayor/treasurer.

For some, the term economic development bears a negative connotation, as if someone picked a winner and therefore, someone else must lose. But economic development is not a zero-sum game. Done well, we all benefit. Done badly or not at all, it is also possible for everyone to lose.

Town Meeting Day is fast approaching and your school board wishes to remind you of changes in the school district budget this year. Governance of the Quarry Valley Unified Union School District (QVUUSD) has been merged and began operation effective July 1, 2018. The new district includes fiv…

Vermont’s town clerks will soon be mailing us our town reports, and Salisbury has already posted a pdf of the new 2018 Salisbury Town Report at its website (https://www.townofsalisbury.org/). It includes an annual report from the Brandon Leicester Salisbury Goshen Pittsford Insect Control Di…

Rutland City voters will decide two infrastructure bond questions at town meeting on March 5. Bond Article 1 seeks $7.4 million for critically needed improvements at the wastewater treatment plant and sewer projects on Meadow Street and the streets near Rutland Intermediate School to reduce …

My name is David T. Fuller and I have served my town of Weathersfield in a number of capacities previously (Select Board-School Board and Emergency Management person during 2011 — Tropical Storm Irene). I am now a candidate for the three-year seat on the Select Board and ask for your vote on…

My name is Lisa Ryan and I am running for re-election to the [Rutland City] Board of Aldermen.

In two recent opinion pieces, Ginny Burley and Alan Saltis imply that the Vermont Legislature has made a big mistake in legalizing cannabis and working on ways to make the substance available legally and safely to the adult public — in other words, the hard work and rigorous study put in by …

I feel compelled to write this as a medical professional (Registered Nurse), woman, mother of two living children and one who has experienced abortion firsthand. The recent push to essentially remove all restrictions on abortion is extremely troubling to me and I believe it is also troubling…

The week of Feb. 4, multiple places in Burlington — Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, the Pride Center of Vermont and Outright Vermont — were hit by flyers and stickers from a national white supremacist group named Patriot Front. The stickers and flyers read “Better Dead Than Red” and “America First.” …

If I could sit in the living room of every Rutland Town home, I would tell you how valuable, essential and critical our Rutland Town Police Department is. While we sat together, I’d have the opportunity to share with you and your family all of the great work these public servants do each day…

This morning, my dog, Fern, and I had a good discussion about toast and jam. Y’want something deeper? C’mon, she’s a dog. I was luxuriating in my lounge chair, about to partake in a toasted slice of pumpernickel slathered with butter and raspberry jam, when Fern, our elderly black Lab, amble…

Our children should never be exposed to dangerous, toxic chemicals.

I have read many articles and listened to many reports lately in regard to abortion. I now feel compelled to respond. Those who are pro-life believe that abortion should be outlawed. Their reason or belief is that abortion is the murder of an unborn child.

I’m in a cynical kind of mood. My disposition results from thinking about how lazy we have become as a society.

The governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, has been associated with a despicable act of racism in his 1984 yearbook pictures at medical college. His act is extremely hurtful and brutally disgraceful to people of color, especially black people. He should have, in 1984, known better, should have…

The recommendations of the governor’s marijuana commission included strong recommendations for prevention and education at all levels. They included strong recommendations for public safety, including impaired driving and product testing. Will any of these recommendations make it into policy?

If your baseball team consistently loses games because it doesn’t score as many runs as the other side, but your team regularly gets more hits, would you demand that the rules of baseball be changed? This is essentially the basis of the demand currently popular in social media to abolish the…

Frank Zappa said, “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline.” Until recently, you couldn’t call yourself a real American town unless you had a college. News that Green Mountain College will close its doors sunk my heart. What does it mean for students, staff, faculty…

Raising a family in the city of Rutland was one of the greatest decisions I made in my life, aside from birthing my two daughters, Olivia and Savannah. Having been a resident of the city for nearly 12 years, I have witnessed a profound, positive impact the culture has had on myself, family a…

Wetlands are the unsung champions of the natural world — watery, squishy places that fundamentally support our daily lives. Feb. 2, World Wetlands Day, is a time to celebrate these under-appreciated places in our landscape. Vermont is blessed with some of our region’s most important wetlands.