Category: Government

The Hill Country Observer covers local leaders, elections and elected officials, town and city councils bodies including libraries, schools, planning and other town boards, and all kinds of conversations and decisions that matter to our communities.

  • Issue:

    Mass. weighs immigrant driver’s licenses

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    Backers say change would boost safety, help foreign workers By DAVID SCRIBNERContributing writer   Nestor Vazquez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has lived in the United States for seven years, would love to have a Massachusetts driver’s license. But Vazquez, who lives in Springfield and works for a company in Connecticut, can’t get a read more

    Mass. weighs immigrant driver’s licenses
  • Issue:

    A new model for saving farmland

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    Investor group plans agricultural center in Columbia County By JOHN TOWNESContributing writer   COPAKE, N.Y.A large tract of open land in the central hamlet of Copake, once the proposed site of a controversial affordable-housing development, has now been earmarked for preservation as working farmland. The 122-acre property, a short distance off Route 22 and just read more

    A new model for saving farmland
  • Issue:

    Planning for our car-free youth

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    As a generation shuns driving, towns push for better transit options By DAVID SCRIBNER Contributing writer When Massachusetts legislators were debating an ambitious multi-year transportation funding bill last year, longtime state Rep. William F. “Smitty” Pignatelli was asked whether he supported a push by Gov. Deval Patrick and others to restore passenger rail service between read more

    Planning for our car-free youth
  • Issue:

    Health care reform hits home

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    Area navigators describe progress, pitfalls in covering the uninsured By EVAN LAWRENCE Contributing writer The rollout of new state-run health insurance exchanges in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts hasn’t been free of problems, but in the past few months thousands of people in the region have been able to use the new system to shop read more

    Health care reform hits home
  • Issue:

    Hawthorne Valley aims for sister store in Hudson

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    By JOHN TOWNES Contributing writer HUDSON, N.Y. Nearly a decade of calls for re-establishing a downtown supermarket in Hudson could soon be answered, as the nonprofi t group that runs the Hawthorne Valley Farm Store considers setting up a sister store in the city.   The Hawthorne Valley Association, which operates the popular farm store read more

    Hawthorne Valley aims for sister store in Hudson
  • Issue:

    Mercury threat persists, studies show

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    Health risks linger in region despite cuts in emissions By CRAIG IDLEBROOK Contributing writer   Despite tougher pollution standards that have led to a sharp reduction nationally in emissions of airborne mercury, several new studies suggest that high concentrations of the toxic heavy metal are persisting in the environment and continuing to pose a health read more

    Mercury threat persists, studies show
  • Issue:

    Inside tales from New York’s troubled child welfare system

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    By TRACY FRISCH Contributing writer     GLENS FALLS, N.Y.Sid, a delicate-boned young woman with a tough veneer and numerous piercings, spent most of her high school years in detention. By her own account, her trip through the nether world of New York’s child welfare system began when she was 14, after she took the read more

    Inside tales from New York’s troubled child welfare system
  • Issue:

    Right-to-die debate takes new turns in Vermont

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    By EVAN LAWRENCE Contributing writer   The emotional questions raised by Vermont’s proposed death-with-dignity law have become somewhat familiar after a series of legislative debates over the past decade. Should the terminally ill be able to choose the time and manner of their deaths? Should they be able to request assistance from a doctor? Would read more

    Right-to-die debate takes new turns in Vermont
  • Issue:

    Gun shows draw controversy

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    Where critics push for limits, some fear loss of freedom By THOMAS DIMOPOULOS Contributing writer SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.The line at the door to the City Center began forming hours before the show opened. By 10 a.m., crowds of shoppers moved about the gun-laden tables inside the exhibition hall. Outside on Broadway, demonstrators held up 26 read more

    Gun shows draw controversy
  • Issue:

    Panel backs licenses for undocumented workers

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    Vermont may allow driving privilege regardless of legal status By EVAN LAWRENCE Contributing writer Vermont’s debate over providing driver’s licenses to undocumented foreign workers appears to be shifting from the question of whether to issue licenses to the question of what kind to provide. In January, a nine-member study committee appointed last year by the read more

    Panel backs licenses for undocumented workers