I am writing this to inform the public on recent events that transpired with the Rutland City School Board and the decision I made with regard to such action, as a commissioner of the Rutland City School Board.

This year, I have a whole new appreciation for the importance of sports for our youth. Summer soccer practices for my son’s club team got us back to a sense of normal during COVID-19; it gave us purpose again. It made my heart sing to see him practicing with his friends in socially distanced…

Joe Biden is a national security risk. His cognitive decline is apparent to anyone who has a family member who suffers from dementia. The signs are all there: lack of focus, outbursts of anger, poor memory, shuffling gait, slack jaw and vacant eyes. This is why the campaign won’t allow him t…

Seldom does a community get a chance to solve a serious problem at a bargain price. Rutland City has such an opportunity on the ballot this November. The purchase of the College of St. Joseph gym deserves our wholehearted support.

In 1811 on the “German Coast” of the Mississippi River just north of New Orleans, there was a slave revolt lead by Charles De Laund, Kook and Qumana on a quest to seize their freedom and kill their slave masters. As plantations burned and their masters died, panicked plantation families caus…

My letter is addressed to my Vermont friends who are ATV, snowmobile and motorcycle enthusiasts and who do not vote. I have heard from many of you that you do not vote because it doesn’t matter. “My vote doesn’t count,” you insist. Sadly, I have heard these sentiments from gun owners and hun…

Why I’m voting for President Trump, VP Pence and Republicans on Tuesday, Nov. 3:

A few weeks ago, we learned the truth about the child abuse that took place at Kurn Hattin during the past 80 years. I want to applaud VTDigger’s thorough and unflinching investigative reporting on this matter. Kurn Hattin, no doubt, was a haven for some children, but for others, it was hell…

However long-lived a democracy — as in the U.S.A. — there always seems to be a segment of the populace prone to authoritarian rule. That this segment is highly religious is no accident, since religion is by definition, hierarchal: God reigns on high and we, his subjects, worship and obey fro…

In difficult times like these, it is important to listen, to stay informed, to understand the issues revolving around us. To my friends who live out of state, I tell them that here in Vermont when we agree to disagree, we are civil about it. I like to think that, in times of crisis, Vermonte…

This election, to be held Nov. 3, is one of the most important in my lifetime. At the state and federal levels, we are at a crossroads: Do we continue governing with the constitutions in place that serve as roadmaps to a finished product which embodies and guarantees participation from the p…

The Rutland City School Board has a complicated decision in choosing whether or not to keep the name and symbols associated with the “Raiders.” On one hand, generations of kids have come of age under the name, learning crucial life lessons of teamwork and persistence, as well as building fri…

Donald Trump is a desperate man. He is running scared. He is terrified of losing the presidential election. We can only imagine the reason why: Will it shatter his monstrous ego? Will it prove him less than infallible in the eyes of his supporters? We can only guess.

I have served in the Senate for 46 years, a span that includes 20 Supreme Court nominations and 16 confirmation hearings. None — not one — looked anything like this one.

As I understand the situation, there is a push for a nonbinding referendum in Rutland City on the matter of whether or not to change the Rutland Raiders mascot. As all of you have the option to vote concerning this decision, I feel it is very important that I share my perspective on this mat…

The election of Donald J. Trump as president was not supposed to happen; even he was shocked by the outcome. What Americans were looking for in this man was that business-savvy guy he portrays himself to be — the guy who could run the country more like a business, because “that’s what we nee…

Many things in life are easier when done together. Whether it’s education, economic development, everyday chores or even emergency response, when you have more hands and more help, the work is more efficiently executed and more effectively implemented.

As many of you know by now, I’ve been a pretty harsh critic of the lack of progress in the development of downtown Rutland into a vibrant place people will go out of their way to visit and shop. Even after reading the Sept. 17 article in the Herald titled Gung Ho, I was finally just going to…

I was really moved by Al Wakefield’s article, “Getting to All Lives Matter,” published in the Rutland Herald/Times Argus Sept. 26–27. Al tells a poignant story about how his life has been impacted and yet survived racism. It still lingers in his life today here in Vermont. He said he continu…

When I moved to Rutland about four years ago, it was the first place I’d ever lived that didn’t have a community center with a gymnasium open to the public. That includes a very small Taiwanese island just off the coast of China called Kinmen where I lived for about a year. I went to the loc…

For the past three years, Gov. Phil Scott and others have expressed a concern about Vermont’s stagnant population. Last year, the Legislature even created a New Worker Relocation Program to pay people to move to Vermont, conduct their businesses online, help revitalize small communities and,…

Predictable is the word for the Saturday regulars on the Perspective Page of the Herald. I have no control over the lives of any of the ones I am about to mention here — I have enough to do with my own life’s trajectory and orientation of my guidance system.

In last week’s debate, I heard Governor Scott brag about increasing “affordability” by reducing taxes by $70 million. Sounds great but what does it really mean, who benefits?

“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Rutland City’s request for a $1.45 million bond is about misdirected priorities. Spending that amount of money on a recreation and meeting facility when there are existing facilities and venues that are underutilized is folly.

Vermont needs more from a governor than a manager.

“State Lawmakers Pass Funding Package in Support of VSCS” is the title of a recent press release. “This is a significant moment,” said Sophie Zdatny, chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges System. “These actions reinforce the state’s educational and economic promise to the students, famili…

Research shows that in 1546, John Heywood wrote thusly: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” This writing resembles the Biblical passage, “Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding, which have eyes and see not, which have ears and hear not.”

My nursing friends, we have a public health crisis that we need to acknowledge. We recently became aware that a Black mother and leader in our community, Tabitha Moore, will be forced to move from her house because of racially motivated violence against her and her children.

I am writing this editorial to encourage Rutland City voters to vote Yes on Article 1, which you will find on the back page of your ballot that is part of the General Election on Nov. 3.

Recently, a letter to the editor commented on a Chuck E. Cheese commercial basically saying mask wearing was not necessary in Vermont. Seriously, with more than 200,000 dead in the United States of America due to the coronavirus and you are saying we should all stop doing what has been prove…

I was saddened to read that Tabitha Moore felt compelled to sell her home.

Ms. Olivia Campbell-Andersen is the executive director of Renewable Energy Vermont, an organization of more than a hundred businesses, law firms and lobbyists peddling subsidies for wind and solar electricity. It should come as no surprise that she is quick to try to dispel the idea Californ…

In his June 11, 1963, Civil Rights Address, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy asked the nation: “If an American because his skin is dark cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public schools available, if he cannot vote for the public …

In the wake of this summer’s rolling blackouts in California and now devastating wildfires, the commentary by Mr. McClaughry of the Ethan Allen Institute not only denied the existence of the climate crisis, but falsely blamed renewable electricity — wind, solar and hydro — for the power outages.

The Legislature’s Global Warming Solutions Act has been a centerpiece of the legislative session. It has become something of a rallying cry, an outlet even, for our collective concern and well-founded worry about our changing climate. Legislators have presented this bill as solving the clima…

I believe global warming is real and caused by human actions. The news coverage of wildfires raging out of control and melting ice caps is horrifying and I believe every country should be doing its part to reduce the impact we are having on the climate.

In summer 2012, a large and diverse group of citizens gathered to ask what could be done about the growing opioid crisis affecting our community. That group ultimately became known as Project VISION, an eclectic coalition of virtually every agency and organization dedicated to the welfare of…

September’s National Recovery Month observance invites reflection on “recovery” and reminds us that recovery from addictive substance use and/or mental illness is worth seeking and protecting.

On social media, my opponent disappointingly has made disparaging comments about me and what I “should have done,” or what I “didn’t do to help save” Thomas Dairy from closing. I want to point out that I was never contacted by anyone in regard to this situation. From my understanding, neithe…

My God, what has happened to us? A Black family forced to move out of their Wallingford home as a consequence of unrelenting racial harassment, and their young daughter being cyberbullied and “bitch bullied” in the Mill River school? Where is law enforcement? Where are the student resource p…

The wildfires of California, Oregon and Washington have been increasingly destructive and horrifying: more than 4 million acres burned, air quality the worst of the whole Earth, thousands of homes lost and people displaced and many dead. The loss of wildlife and insects, fungi and all other …

In no way do I compare my writing to the literary stature of Emile Zola. However, I believe I can use the title of his essay which he wrote in the defense of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus of the French Army, who was accused of the crime of treason, which he did not commit. Zola accused the correct pe…