LETTER: Recapping legislative session impacts to public education
A lot has happened recently in the Legislature and the governor’s office that affects the school budget, your property taxes for the next fiscal year, and the push for school district consolidation. As we wind down the school year, we want to give you our quick take on all of these complex issues.
LETTER: The problem with e-bikes is e-motos
Vermont communities are seeing a rapid increase in high-powered, high-speed, unregulated devices operating on streets, sidewalks, and on shared-use paths.
COMMENTARY: A fed bear is a dead bear
Put simply, Vermont’s bear population is thriving, and we need Vermonters to meet a higher standard as stewards of our bears. If we cannot change course together, then Vermont will continue to play out the grim adage: a fed bear is a dead bear.
Commentary: The quiet work of being there for families
We often talk about pregnancy and a new baby as one of the happiest times in a person's life. The reality is often more complicated. Parents may find themselves navigating exhaustion, anxiety, isolation, relationship challenges, and financial stress, often while caring for a newborn and trying to meet their own basic needs.
Op-Ed: Donald Trump may love inflation, but working families don't
In February, the Supreme Court ruled the tariffs enacted by the Trump administration unlawful and ordered refunds. Four months later, the obstruction is unmistakable: of the $166 billion owed, only $21 billion has been repaid. Another $40 billion sits in limbo while the administration requires individual lawsuits for each importer to access their money.
Op-Ed: Vermont is in trouble
We are aging, shrinking, and pricing out our own children, workers, and entrepreneurs. Schools face consolidation, taxes are climbing, and employers struggle to fill jobs.
Op-Ed: Time to declare independence from Big Tech’s tyrannical kings
Weeks away from the 250th celebration of our nation’s founding – it is time to declare Vermont’s schools independent of “Big Tech.”
LETTER: State dramatically, opaquely expands bear hunting in Vermont
As the saying goes, trust is a fragile thing—hard to earn, easy to lose. For wildlife protection advocates, trust in the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s leadership has never really been earned—and keeps slipping further away.
LETTER: Host families needed for Rotary Youth Exchange Student from France
Our local Rotary Youth Exchange program is seeking two host families for a wonderful high school exchange student from France who will be arriving this August.
Op-Ed: Vermont’s childcare shortage is really a housing problem
Housing is on everyone’s minds these days: How to build more of it, and how to make it affordable for more families. There are many ideas to increase funding and reduce regulations to make it more attractive for developers to build in Vermont.
Siegel: New law is a historic step forward in disability rights
The enactment of H.938, the Vermont Homelessness Response Continuum, represents the most significant disability protections ever written into Vermont's homelessness response.
OPINION: Extraction of cash, extortion, and pollution killed the data center bill
This past legislative session, Vermonters for a Clean Environment participated in the development of a responsible data center bill, H.727. Despite these efforts, Gov. Phil Scott's veto of the bill was justified due to the Senate's massive fumble.
Rep. Wood: Wrapping up a thorny biennium; running to continue in 2027
The 2026 legislative session ended with the budget, yield bill and the education bill wrapping up one of the more difficult biennium sessions in my 11 years of service to the citizens of Bolton, Buel’s Gore, Huntington and Waterbury. Even with that difficulty, I am prepared to continue this work going forward.
Sen. Watson: Reflections on the 2026 legislative session
Now that the legislative session has ended, I want to share with you some of the most important bills passed out of the legislature and passed out of Senate Natural Resources and Energy, which I chaired, and then I want to highlight what I'm at least currently perceiving as priorities going into next session, but I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on what should come next.
Molly Gray: Building the housing Vermont needs
Housing in Vermont is too expensive and too scarce. Since 2020, home prices in Vermont have risen by an average of 31%.
Letter: A state agency goes rogue
To add to the issues with the Fish and Wildlife Department’s management comes their decision to embark upon a greenwashing campaign on Vermont Public (radio).
LETTER: Vermont chef wanted for seafood cookoff in New Orleans
Lt. Gov. John Rodgers will select a Vermonter to represent the state at the 2026 Great American Seafood Cookoff in New Orleans next month. The nominee will receive $1,000 to offset travel, in addition to hotel accommodations.
Bossange: Reflections from living under a dictatorship 50 years ago
Life today in America is reminding me of my years in Brazil, where I lived in the late 1970s. At the time, Brazil was a country under the military dictatorship of General Ernesto Geisel and characterized by state-sponsored violence, pervasive censorship and political oppression.
LETTER: Vermonters decry cuts to solar net metering program
As long-standing current and former members of Vermont's active and dispersed network of town energy committees, we have worked hard to advance solutions in our communities and for our friends and neighbors in those communities to reduce energy costs, cut planet-warming pollution, and become more energy independent. Solar, which is strong, reliable, and powerful – and now the cheapest power on the planet – can do the job.
Vermont’s elections are strong. Federal support is not.
Deep cuts to federal election funding and the dismantling of cybersecurity support are leaving Vermont dangerously exposed. Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hazas is joined by three predecessors in assessing the upcoming election landscape.