Category: Editorial

  • Issue:

    To New York’s reform list, add selection of judges

      When New York voters go to the polls on Nov. 5, they’ll get to choose from among an array of candidates for local and county offices – and for state Supreme Court. When it comes to choosing justices for the Supreme Court, which is actually the state’s trial-level court, most voters aren’t likely to read more

    To New York’s reform list, add selection of judges
  • Issue:

    Is this the best way to help farm workers?

      One of the biggest changes to agriculture in our region over the past couple of decades is the shift to reliance on foreign-born laborers. At most of the large dairy farms that still survive across eastern New York and Vermont, immigrant workers, mainly from Mexico and Central America, now do the vast majority of read more

    Is this the best way to help farm workers?
  • Issue:

    Expanding the links to fresh, healthy food

    It has been an inspiration to watch the blossoming of the local food movement in our region over the past two decades. Farmers markets, community supported farms, and locally crafted food businesses of every variety have sprung up and thrived in our small cities and rural towns as consumers increasingly seek out food that’s local, read more

    Expanding the links to fresh, healthy food
  • Issue:

    A vote of confidence in Bennington’s future

    Finally the dream is starting to become real.It’s been more than four years since community leaders began formulating a plan to redevelop nearly a full square block in the center of downtown Bennington. Its backers say the Putnam Block project, formally unveiled in 2017, will restore three historic multi-story buildings along Main and South streets read more

    A vote of confidence in Bennington’s future
  • Issue:

    Ground rules needed for slate quarrying

    One of the chief selling points of zoning and planning laws is the idea that government oversight of land use gives a measure of protection to landowners large and small. As we’ve seen in many cases over the years, the devil is the details of land-use laws, and sometimes these laws wind up requiring ugly read more

    Ground rules needed for slate quarrying
  • Issue:

    In a graying region, welcome willing hands

    One of the wonders of our current period of political polarization is the apparent ease with which some people are managing to hold fast to their ideological viewpoints even in the face of lots of contradictory evidence. And nowhere is that phenomenon more evident that in our ugly national debate over immigration. Last month, our read more

    In a graying region, welcome willing hands
  • Issue:

    Disappearing local colleges pose questions for future

    As scandals go, this one was stunning in its scope yet somehow unsurprising. In mid-March, federal prosecutors accused nearly three dozen wealthy parents across the country of making six- and seven-figure payments to buy their children admission to top-ranked colleges from Yale to Stanford. The parents, authorities say, paid a corrupt educational consultant who then read more

    Disappearing local colleges pose questions for future
  • Issue:

    Benefits and hazards of a one-party Albany

    Remember when Albany meant gridlock? For so long, New York’s state capital was the place where even simple problems couldn’t be solved – and where good ideas went to die. Then came November’s election, which upended Legislature’s balance of power. That balance has for decades, except for one brief period, included an Assembly controlled by read more

    Benefits and hazards of a one-party Albany
  • Issue:

    Recycling’s turmoil: A time to reassess

    When state and local governments got into the recycling business 30 years ago amid the 1980s solid waste crisis, supporters said the economics of this new endeavor would sort themselves out over time. The theory was that, by getting the public to separate cans, glass, paper and plastics from disposable trash, we’d create a steady read more

    Recycling’s turmoil: A time to reassess
  • Issue:

    Test for smart growth: Where do cars fit in?

    In the many conflicts over development around our region in recent years, the issue of whether a project contributes to sprawl or helps to produce “smart growth” really boils down to one question: Are the buildings and their arrangement on the landscape scaled to people who approach them on foot – or in cars? The read more

    Test for smart growth: Where do cars fit in?