RSSAll Entries in the "Op-ed" Category

Op-ed: Voting rights at Andover Town Meeting

Op-ed: Voting rights at Andover Town Meeting

By Madeline Bodin ©2024 Telegraph Publishing LLC Where will you be on Monday, March 4 at 5 o’clock? If you live in Andover and you say, “Leaving work, of course,” you have a problem. For the second time in two years, Andover’s Town Meeting will be held on a weekday afternoon. There is a well-respected […]

Rep. Pajala: School choice flourishes in rural Vermont communities

Rep. Pajala: School choice flourishes in rural Vermont communities

By Rep. Kelly Pajala It has been a tough year for the rural community I represent in southern Vermont. Flooding struck not once, but twice. July ravaged our towns, damaged small businesses, and forced people from their homes (including my own). Now that the legislature is back in Montpelier, I hope my colleagues can work […]

Sen. Clarkson: Vermont's housing crisis continues to be priority in Montpelier

Sen. Clarkson: Vermont’s housing crisis continues to be priority in Montpelier

By Sen. Alison Clarkson Addressing Vermont’s housing crisis is one of the legislature’s top agenda items this year – as it has been for the last four years. There are many factors creating the challenge we face. Vermont has been underbuilding new housing units since the 1980s. Add to that the Covid pandemic, the loss […]

Op-ed: One small gift leads to so much more

Op-ed: One small gift leads to so much more

By Sharon Bondroff ©2023 Telegraph Publishing LLC GRAY, MAINE In the late 1970s, searching for a gift for my partner Stevens Bunker, I stopped by a small antiques shop in Ellicott City, Md. Turns out Joe the shopkeeper, was friends with Bunker. They both loved, bought and sold old maritime stuff. Joe was a retired […]

Op-ed: So why is the Scott administration encouraging short-term rentals?

Op-ed: So why is the Scott administration encouraging short-term rentals?

By John Walters ©2023 Vermont Political Observer Lately there’s been a big jump in the number of housing units being used as short-term rentals. You know, VRBO, AirBnB, those fine folks. According to a story co-produced by Vermont Public and VTDigger, “the number of homes listed on platforms like Airbnb and VRBO has grown rapidly […]

Op-ed: Coming to grips with racism at school

Op-ed: Coming to grips with racism at school

By Madeline Bodin If you have ever seen me, then you almost certainly have seen me in a sweatshirt with the Chieftain head on it. During the 10 years that my two children attended Green Mountain Union High School and Middle School, I owned three GM hoodies, two green and one gray. I wore them […]

Op-ed: Vermont is more diverse than depicted

Op-ed: Vermont is more diverse than depicted

Editor’s note: The public is invited to write and send in op-ed’s on a variety of topics that directly affect our communities. Mail them to cprairie@chestertelegraph.org. By Sara Stowell ©2023 Telegraph Publishing LLC Recently The Chester Telegraph published an op-ed titled Vermont officially perpetuates its whiteness by Phayvanh Leukhamhan. The author critiques recent promotional videos […]

Opinion: Vermont officially perpetuates its whiteness

Opinion: Vermont officially perpetuates its whiteness

By Phayvanh Luekhamhan I  keep coming back to the question I frequently hear asked: “Why is Vermont so white?” It’s often accompanied by head scratching or a shoulder shrug, as if the phenomenon of our whiteness is inherent as part of our DNA, a natural law, and not something that can be reasonably explained. Vermont […]

Op-ed: A much-welcomed immersion in poetry

Op-ed: A much-welcomed immersion in poetry

By Nicholas Boke We’ve all—everyone, everywhere—been through a lot lately. Maybe your power went out for several very cold days recently; maybe you have friends in Ukraine, or Israel, or Mississippi; maybe you — like me — just spend too much time wondering what will happen to teen-age girls who’ve been raped in Texas, or […]

Bullets guns proliferation

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 […]