Opinion

I eavesdropped on ibrattleboro’s excellent coverage of your town mtg, & was pleased to see the discussion about the ill-conceived proposal from the legislature to kill our local school boards.  I believe the Vt legislature originally met for much shorter sessions, and like so many institutions has grown bigger just because there was time available for it to do so. This proposal suggests they have too much time on their hands and are inventing fixes for things that ain’t broke.

Sure, we can always use improvements to our public education system, but abolishing our citizen school boards seems misguided, especially since they cost almost nothing to maintain (in Guilford, for example, just over $2,000 a year in a school budget of some $2 million!)

While watching town meeting today many downtown merchants spoke about their opposition to the proposed  1% local options tax because it will send people to NH (as if those of us on the border towns don’t shop there already). I was very disappointed to hear little to no discussion about how NOT approving this tax continues to hammer those of us who pay property taxes in Brattleboro.

Downtown merchants shifted their focus to out-of-state visitors long ago. We have very few stores that provide necessities anymore: a drug store, a hardware store, an Elliot Street convenience store, the Co-op. The bike stores, specialty/gift stores, and even Sam’s non-clothing sections target specific hobbies or are for discretionary items.

THE POLICE AND FIRE FACILITIES PROJECT

It is not a mystery that the Selectboard placed the sales tax but not the Police/Fire Facilities project on the March 4th ballot as a straw or nonbonding vote.  Were they on together both would have likely been voted down.  Thus the Selectboard gave us only one choice.  In the same way the P/F project itself was presented at Town Meeting as only one choice. Town Meeting Members were forced to accept it all even if only one piece, or none of it at all seemed necessary.  It was as if the administration believed that citizen input had no place in the development of the project.  Since the vote was taken any further questions have been dismissed with ‘it’s been voted on.’  Conversation over.

I’m turning 50 this year, which means I have 15-20 years to retirement age — if all goes well.

Let’s look at the news and see if things are going well. Lost airplane, Crimea, oh wait, what’s this?  That might impact my retirement. You have my attention.

The article says collapses are a normal part of the cycle of civilization. Rome, for example. OK, we knew that. Nothing new there.

To the Brattleboro Business Community,

The Brattleboro Area Prevention Coalition (BAPC) would like
to thank the businesses that participated in the Responsible Beverage Service Trainings held in March co-sponsored by the Department of Liquor Control.

BAPC recognizes the important role that local retailers and restaurants play in preventing underage drinking. Thank you to the following businesses for participating in the training:

Several years ago I advocated that courses in the humanities be offered and taught to those within Vermont who might have otherwise gone without the opportunities and benefits of these. For example: people living in poverty; people living homeless; persons incarcerated in jails, prisons or other institutions; people living in the throes of drug or alcohol addiction.

What I had been urging be established was for programs along the lines of the Clemente Course in the Humanities model (clementecourse.org).

For years I have been warning marijuana advocates not to take the easy way out by using medical marijuana as a wedge to “soften up” public sentiment. Regrettably, many marijuana patients had this “we need our medicine now” mentality. Too many medical marijuana people were self-interested only in their needs. Some even stated to me it was more important to legalize marijuana for medical needs than it was to legalize it for all adults. The fact that millions of Americans were and are trapped in the criminal justice gulag did not matter to them, just as long as they got their meds.

As I feared, medical marijuana only muddles marijuana legalization. In the long run, the advent of pundits pushing the medical angle did so at the expense of the larger marijuana consumer population.

Before releasing your pets via a “Free to good home” ad, please do some research on this problem and arrange a follow up plan so you can see that your beloved pets DO recieve the care and love they deserve.  You can begin by typing “Free to good home” in Google and see the extent of risk of doing this.  Pet-abuse.com has some great articles on this.

Vermont is once again ranked as the least religious state in the country. Over half the people in our state are less likely to believe in God than the rest of the country. However, being the least religious state doesn’t stop the sectarian denominations from their power struggles for domain over man, land and beast. The upshot is that our state is a target for overt religious proselytizing.