Category: Editorial

  • Issue:

    Smart growth, red herrings and a town’s climate plan

    In the great cacophony of our democratic system, it’s hardly unusual to hear claims of backroom deals, hidden agendas and all sorts of shenanigans aimed at subverting the public good for private or political gain. Sometimes these claims even turn out to be true. But sometimes public servants with pure motives wind up being unfairly read more

    Smart growth, red herrings and a town’s climate plan
  • Issue:

    In water crisis, states reveal differing political cultures

    It hardly comes as a surprise that when faced with a crisis, Vermont’s state government would perform a whole lot better than New York’s. We already knew, from so many news stories over the years, that Vermont still functions as a representative democracy – and that New York has, well, Albany. But it’s still a read more

    In water crisis, states reveal differing political cultures
  • Issue:

    Disrespecting voters on Mass. pot policy

    Disrespecting voters on Mass. pot policy When Massachusetts voters debated last fall’s ballot question on whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use, virtually all of the state’s elected officials urged a No vote. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, eight of the state’s nine U.S. House members and read more

    Disrespecting voters on Mass. pot policy
  • Issue:

    Backdrop of scandal sets stage for lulus

    At first blush, the recent kerfuffle over legislative stipends hardly seems to rank among the biggest or worst of Albany scandals. After all, it’s been barely a year since longtime Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison after being convicted of lining his pockets to the tune of $5 million. read more

    Backdrop of scandal sets stage for lulus
  • Issue:

    Plan for a downtown gets the big stuff right

    We have learned over the past few decades in our region that there are many ways to wreck a downtown. We’ve also learned, with good reason, to fear ambitious redevelopment schemes concocted in the name of saving struggling downtowns – plans that too often have done more harm than good. So it’s worth taking a read more

    Plan for a downtown gets the big stuff right
  • Issue:

    On health care vote, hiding in plain sight

    Say what you will about John Faso, but at least we know where he stood. As the House was nearing a vote last month on the most contentious issue so far in the new Congress – repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act – the freshman congressman from the Hudson Valley came out strongly in read more

    On health care vote, hiding in plain sight
  • Issue:

    Rutland becomes microcosm in immigration crackdown

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    When Mayor Christopher Louras announced last April that he’d volunteered Rutland as the new home for 100 refugees from the Syrian civil war, he could scarcely have imagined how fully and quickly his city would be engulfed by the toxic propaganda of a growing national anti-immigration movement. But by June, the online “Breitbart News” site read more

    Rutland becomes microcosm in immigration crackdown
  • Issue:

    Tests show wide scope of school lead hazard

    Woody Allen famously said that showing up accounts for 80 percent of success in life. And when it comes to finding contamination in our drinking water, it seems at least 80 percent of success depends on testing the water. Our region learned this lesson rather painfully over the past two years with the discovery of read more

    Tests show wide scope of school lead hazard
  • Issue:

    To heal our democracy, change how we vote

    As November dawns, voters across our region are headed to the polls, inspired by a particularly high-minded campaign and impressed by the choice of so many fine candidates for public offices from the presidency on down. Well, we can dream, can’t we? The reality, of course, is that we’ve just endured a presidential campaign that read more

    To heal our democracy, change how we vote
  • Issue:

    Raids show the failure of marijuana prohibition

    The military-style helicopter hovered low over a house in Amherst, Mass., last month, its blades whirring as two men crouched in its open doorway, apparently aiming a thermal-imaging device at the back yard below. Within 10 minutes, several law enforcement vehicles arrived at the home, and State Police collected the illegal contraband they had found: read more

    Raids show the failure of marijuana prohibition