WEST BRATTLEBORO-We look to the Brattleboro Selectboard for leadership, not for them to get bogged down in the weeds.
Ironically, it is because of their leadership efforts - in using emergency powers to hire nine new Police Department personnel to address community safety issues - that they ended up bumping up against another emergency: the astronomical rise in property taxes that Vermont property owners are experiencing.
The Selectboard knows that the 22% increase in municipal taxes originally arrived at in the budget process is untenable. Since then, the board has chosen to follow a process of reviewing staff-proposed cuts of 5% and 10% in various line items.
Will this process eventually result in a palatable property tax increase, i.e., one in the 5%-or-less range? I personally doubt it, though time will tell.
BRATTLEBORO-I was going to write a different letter of support for Emilie Kornheiser, as she runs for Windham-7 (West Brattleboro) state representative. Then, however, my thoughts coalesced around one word: courage. The courage to push for the right things, even if she receives backlash for her positions: This capability...
On Dec. 23, I, joining many others, attended the Pliny Park (Brattleboro) protest of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. I think it is irrefutable that the Hamas attack on innocent Israeli citizens on Oct. 7 was horrific and an abomination. In my opinion, however, the actions of Israel's Netanyahu-led...
My knowledge of the Israel/Hamas situation is superficial at best. While I know some about the history and some about the current situation, I have never studied it in any depth. My own DNA has no Jewish or Palestinian percentages. Over 18 years ago I did marry into a secular Jewish family, and I have certainly come to know their stories of escape from Nazi Germany and Nazi Austria in the late 1930s. Regarding the history of violent conflict in...
I left Brattleboro's Representative Town Meeting on March 25 perturbed. A lot of good was voted for. Not much restraint was in evidence. I was also unsettled because I think a lot of District 1 (now District 7) residents would not agree with all the spending that was approved, but I failed to articulate my concerns. We representatives wrestled for a good while with Article 23, about how large a human services budget to recommend for FY25 (i.e., for July...
I have been following the letters and public hearings and coverage regarding the proposed amendment to the Brattleboro Town Charter relating to evictions of housing tenants. What BSAG Realty has done to tenants at Westbrook Court is, I believe, an example of why some persons and entities choose to be absentee owners: so they do not have to even see the faces of the people whose lives they are completely upending. I am also convinced, however, that we have many...
The monument in West Kingston, Rhode Island to the Great Swamp Fight of Dec. 19, 1675 commemorates the vicious clash between colonial militia (and some of their Native American allies) and the Narragansett people. I can trace the portion of me who is a Bosworth back to one of the colonists who fought that day, John Bosworth. While I was growing up, my family was proud that my father's paternal line, though not among the 1620 Pilgrims, had immigrated to...
Jim Dandeneau, executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, has said, “We know the Vermont Republican Party is filthy with insurrectionist sympathizers.” What possible general good was Dandeneau thinking would come from this broad-brush remark? Is the thought of Vermonters becoming ever more divided, ever more uncivil to one another (as use of the word “filthy” certainly helps to further), a strategy Dandeneau is pursuing? It certainly seems so. While as a rule I vote for (and sometimes contribute to)