The fact FATHOM is going out of business could be a blessing in disguise. When a city or town loses some of its local control of billing and collections, it doesn’t seem like the best use of taxpayer dollars.

Numerous Poultney households have recently been sent a certified letter from a party identified on the envelope only by a nine-digit zip code that corresponds to the address of record for Poultney Properties, whose principal, Leonard Knappmiller, seeks to install a Dollar General on his prop…

Garbage. Trash. Waste. Rubbish. For many, these words trigger images of cans and baskets lined with oversized plastic bags filled to the brim with — as Templeton the Rat from Charlotte’s Web would say — a veritable smorgasbord of who-knows-what. The “stuff” that comprises trash is easy to fo…

On Nov. 4, President Trump formally moved to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. This decision leaves the United States alone in the world as literally the only nation not participating in that landmark agreement, signaling to fossil fuel executives that the Trump administration will con…

Double-digit increases in health care premiums are bringing extra pain and stress to open-enrollment season for health insurance. Higher prices for less care are causing all the harm you’d expect. A business owner told me how frustrated he is, because the high cost means he has to offer his …

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” — Patrick Henry

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

On Nov. 6, the Vermont Bar Association stood with the state’s other legal service providers at the Vermont Supreme Court to announce the recently completed “Economic Impact of Civil Legal Assistance Programs in Vermont” study. This report, the first of its kind in Vermont, shows the Vermont …

Saturday, Oct. 19, started out as any ordinary Saturday. My wife and I attended a breakfast meeting at the Lake Bomoseen Lodge. Since I knew I had a game to officiate at 11 a.m., I made arrangements for my wife to ride home with our friends, the Tejas, so I could leave at 10 a.m. to get to t…

This past week a tsunami blew into Rutland, landing squarely onto the stage of The Paramount. It was the long-running Broadway musical known as the Greek Islands Love Story, “MAMMA MIA! “—made from the hugely popular music of ABBA. It was a high-speed blender of talent, positive energy, comm…

A decade ago, I wrote a column titled “Reactionary Liberalism.” That’s the pernicious practice of legislators who believe government ought to fund large programs, but who dare not face the wrath of taxpayers when they’re required to pay for those programs.

It’s been 101 years since the Armistice was signed that ended the First World War. That war was so horrific it was viewed as the war to end all wars. People wanted peace.

The latest round of flagellation of dead horse flesh has been provoked by the release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress scores. After 20 years of overall progress, many of the scores went down. While all groups improved over the long haul, the gaps between white and other ra…

My apologies to the Rutland Herald, but they have been duped by someone into taking a public stance in an editorial that is misleading and unfortunately trashes program protections for our rivers and lakes from stormwater pollution. Other papers have now reprinted the Rutland Herald editoria…

I’ve previously written about how our unfunded pension liabilities are Vermont’s sleeping giant. We owe our state employees and teachers about $4.5 billion more than we have in the bank. We’ve seen two credit-rating downgrades in one year. Our “funded ratio” (the ratio of assets to liabiliti…

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, a collective effort between the government and industry to educate Americans on cybersecurity and ensure they have resources to be safe online. NBT Bank is taking the opportunity to educate the community on protecting themselves from an incr…

Rutland City Alderman Scott Tommola’s refusal to hold a meeting on the issue of bias training is an unfortunate setback on Rutland’s bumpy road toward becoming a more diverse, inclusive and progressive community.

Once upon a time, Americans revolted against a tyrannical king and his parliamentary supporters who taxed them without their consent and passed other laws that violated their natural rights. After more than 30,000 patriots died securing our independence, the Founders were determined to preve…

My dad was a card-carrying Republican. That’s what his father was. That’s what our Protestant upstate-New York farming community was. They were “conservative” in that very “set-in-their-ways” kind of habitual manner.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to downtown Rutland with my family because we sometimes go out to dinner together. Coincidentally, we were there for “Sip and Shop,” an event that drew people downtown to do just that. There were so many people out, it was incredible. Groups were walking up and …

Of all the 50 states, California has been blessed with every advantage. A mild climate. Fertile land. Tall timber. Mining riches. Strategic location for shipping, trade and finance. Great universities. Glorious scenery. And, of course, Silicon Valley, the world-leading center for high technology.

Should Vermont taxpayer-funded government lawyers do free legal work for private law firms and companies? Or should the State be reimbursed for that work? Those are some of the questions that need to be asked after the recent Vermont Supreme Court decision, Doyle v. City of Burlington Police…

Vermonters shouldn’t have to pay for access to their government’s public records. Government transparency is far too important to be revoked by government agencies when they feel inconvenienced.

I believe Rutland has gone through a great deal of transition in my lifetime. I have seen a downtown go from vibrant to vacant to vibrant back to vacant, and now headed to vibrancy again. Families have come and gone over multiple generations. Crime is typical for any small city and drugs are…

Years ago, as I was trying to back out of a Price Chopper parking space on the lot’s curve, looking for the cars rounding the curve that might strike me, a woman knocked on my car window. I opened the window and was dressed down for not seeing her trying to walk behind my car! I’m sitting th…

Fall has arrived. As the leaves collect on the ground, and we begrudgingly begin the process of raking up the colorful remnants of summer into endless piles, it is a good time of year to remember what urban trees provide for us.

Vermont Technical College recently joined health care leaders, dentists, academics and legislators in Burlington to help finalize the introduction of dental therapy, an innovative profession that can help combat some of Vermont’s most critical needs. I spoke about Vermont Tech’s effort to la…

At the most recent (Rutland City) Board of Aldermen meeting, Board President Sharon Davis made a point of calling out aldermen for “talking to people she said they shouldn’t” (Oct. 8 Rutland Herald article “President takes board to task”). While she didn’t say my name publicly, it is general…

Many Vermonters love to hike, especially in the fall. It’s a great way to enjoy the beauty of our state. It is also a chance to spend time with our dogs. What some Vermonters do not know is there are hidden dangers in the woods: baited leghold and body-crushing kill traps.

Your Sept. 28 editorial, “Let’s Get Creative,” reminds us of the importance of the creative economy to commerce in Vermont, and I value your thoughts on this. However, in listing towns making “significant investments toward integrating arts and culture into their economic base,” you have ove…

Vermonters have recently witnessed, once again, the annual battle over health insurance rate increases for individual and small business plans. It’s worth taking a long look at just what the state thinks it’s doing, and how it does it.

On Sept. 20, millions of youth across the globe took to the streets to join the #ClimateStrike movement started by the extraordinary Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, and led in the U.S. by the young people of color who founded and direct the Youth Climate Strike. As both a father and the ex…

Burying one’s head in the sand is rarely an effective strategy for dealing with a problem.

Burying one’s head in the sand is rarely an effective strategy for dealing with a problem.

Your Sept. 28 editorial, “Let’s Get Creative,” reminds us of the importance of the creative economy to commerce in Vermont, and I value your thoughts on this. However, in listing towns making “significant investments toward integrating arts and culture into their economic base,” you have ove…

This should be a concern for everyone here in the United States. It’s been turned into a political issue.

Imagine a landowner and a county forester walking in the woods. They’re standing in the middle of a grove of mixed hardwoods. Interspersed within the numerous brown and gray trunks are softer hues of birch trees. The county forester offers the landowner tips to manage her 300-acre woodlot.

As a proud Rutland City native who, along with my entire family, benefited greatly from the wise tutelage of talented and caring educators and support staff during our school years in Rutland, I am delighted to serve you as superintendent.

“Education or Indoctrination.” Are those our two choices? There are 7.5 billion people on this planet. How can a statement like this be made, reducing it to either/or?

As this Global Climate Strike week moves forward, let me share an interesting perspective on the “defeat climate change” movement from somebody who believes in all the climate apocalypse hype — but seems to have suddenly awakened to the interests promoting it.

I’d like to comment on James Hall’s letter to the editor (Sept. 11) in reference to AR-15s purchased from an FFL dealer not being a weapon of war. Aside from the NRA and the Second Amendment, about each of which volumes have been written, I want everyone who reads our local newspaper to know…

We have a stove hearth at our house. On one side sits a three-legged milking stool and on the other side is a 40-quart jug or milk can, with my grandfather's brass name label on it, assigned by the Bellows Falls, Vermont, Co-op Creamery, dated about 1920-something. These sit in their place a…

Back-to-school season has begun across America. Millions of children have returned to classrooms, ready to start a new school year. Now, thanks to the Trump administration, hundreds of thousands of struggling families —including many Vermonters — may have to worry about how they will be able…

Burton was founded in 1977 in a barn in Londonderry, and Vermont has remained our home base since. We now have over 400 employees working at our headquarters in Burlington and 1,000 in total around the world. These roots and our shared values with the Green Mountain State are a proud part of…

As the Sept. 11 edition of the Rutland Herald states, Arthur David Wolk was born in Rutland 100 years ago. At that time, his parents had a store on Center Street, Wolk’s Tots and Teens.

The climate has been changing since the beginning of time, yes, even before there were human inhabitants on the planet millions of years ago. In fact, there have been three ice ages that have been documented as happening, and the period we are in now is called “quaternary,” which eventually …

As the Vermont State Colleges System contemplates significant changes to ensure that its colleges and universities continue to provide an affordable, accessible and student-centered education, Castleton’s future remains bright. The VSCS Secure the Future initiative outlines the challenges fa…

The U.S. Constitution is the document upon which all of the laws governing this land are based. It is not perfect — it has been amended 27 times after much deliberation.