Unfair Co-op Coverage
“Celebration of the Co-op’s Innovative Farm-to- Store Policies is Focus of the Annual Board Meeting” could have been the headline on the Valley News article about the 2016 Co-op annual meeting. This unique program was designed by our local Co-ops to remove much of the risk for local farmers who provide fresh produce and local products to the Co-op stores. A great many of the farmers spoke movingly about the improvements the Co-op policies have made in their lives, and in the success of their farms. The majority of the meeting consisted of these farmers taking time out of their busy schedules to tell their histories with the Co-op and the positive personal results of these policies. None of this was mentioned in the Valley News article.
The paper’s reticence to say anything positive about the Co-op also led to more coverage of “CATC” and its candidates, barely mentioning the two Co-op employees who are also board candidates, Kevin Birdsey and Edwin Howes. Both of these longtime employees spoke sincerely and eloquently at the board meeting, clearly demonstrating their dedication to the Co-op and to cooperative values. The presence of employees on co-op boards is a long-standing policy at co-ops throughout the country.
The favoritism of Valley News staff and writers toward “CATC” members has effectively disenfranchised many co-op members and employees. Whether by bias or omission, the coverage has been irresponsible and inaccurate, and has done a great disservice to the community at large.
Patrice Lihatsh Mushlin
Hartland
Transparency Would Help Co-op
As the Co-op Food Stores’ election nears its April 30 close, it’s wonderful that so many people have spoken passionately about the Co-op. Even if members disagree about ideas and plans, their involvement is the crucial difference between a co-op and a chain store.
Public voices in this election seem to take one of two tones. One says the Co-op is a great institution with some problems needing urgent attention. The other says the Co-op has no problems other than members who dare discuss problems.
I count myself and Phil Pochoda, Liz Blum, Ann MacDonald and Donald Kreis — reform-minded board candidates — among those who want to address real issues so our Co-op will thrive.
To say there are problems is to state the obvious. To name a few, creating new stock of limited value to raise cash, investing in a money-losing store, evoking tremendous membership protests and tangling with the National Labor Relations Board are signs of trouble.
And everyone agrees that chain stores pose tough competition.
Reformers believe membership is the key to Co-op success. And we believe membership is more than shopping.
Our Co-op has drifted into a business culture that treats membership rather like “membership” in discount chains: pay a fee to shop, don’t ask questions and don’t expect meaningful dividends. The big difference, alas, is that chain “members” save money, while our Co-op is not price-competitive.
Our Co-op cannot “outbox” the box stores. Despite expansion to four stores, economies of scale ensure we’ll never beat the chains’ bottom line or out-invest them. How, then, will our Co-op thrive?
By attracting and keeping member loyalty. By treating all employees in a way that makes members proud. By ensuring that selection matches members’ tastes. By building on the Co-op’s special relationship with local producers. By insisting on full financial transparency, objectively assessing investments and working to restore meaningful dividends. By being what a chain store can never be: a community.
A co-op that fears — or condescends to — member involvement is not a community.
A well-run Co-op has nothing to fear from transparency.
William Craig
Thetford Center
Union Would Drive Up Prices
Questions being asked of candidates running for Co-op offices should focus on where candidates stand on the issue of unions. If they’re SEIU supporters, my advice is to stay away from those candidates and that hard-left union. If you think prices are a bit high now at the Co-op, just wait and see how that union will influence the cost of things. Remember one thing — the left never gives up.
My vote will be going to Kevin Birdsey, Dana Cook Grossman, Edwin Howes and Benoit Roisin.
Greg Bogdanich
Lyme
Unworthy News of the Day
In Sunday’s paper, on the second page of the first section, under World & Nation Briefs, appeared an article entitled “No Soup for You: Lawyer Upset After Restaurant Runs Out of Soup.”
I can only ask — why did you print this? Why is this worthy of the category in which it appears, to say nothing of why it should appear in the paper at all? With all that is going on in the world, this is all that you could find as newsworthy? I would argue that this was not newsworthy, worthy of the space in which it was printed or even slightly interesting. Surely the Valley News can, and should, do better than this for its readers?
Sharon Cook
Wilder
Humans Set the World Afire
The world population is approaching eight billion. Now, let’s pick a conservative number and say that about 30 percent of that eight billion are adults doing what adults do. Primarily, what adults do is light fires. We burn stuff all day long. When we get up in the morning we light about three and a half billion fires. And that’s just for breakfast. Then we go off to our jobs and bring the kids to school while lighting a couple more fires. So by the time we get to the job we’ve lit somewhere between seven and nine billion fires. After polluting the planet all the way to your job, here’s where it really gets going: industry. I can’t begin to imagine the number of fires burning god knows what, spewing smoke and toxic material into our air. And there are still people like Forum writer Dick Tracy questioning our effect on climate change.
Brian Cain
Sharon
Vermonters Miss Bobcat Fact
I have to laugh every time I read a letter from a Vermonter about the proposal for a bobcat season in New Hampshire. They should check the laws over on the other side of the river. Vermont has a trapping and hunting season on bobcats.
David Rondeau
Lyme
Get the Full Goldman Sachs Story
The lead in your April 12 front-page story about a recently announced financial settlement stated that, “Goldman Sachs will pay $5.1 billion to resolve U.S. allegations that it failed to properly vet mortgage-backed securities before selling them to investors as high-quality debt,” which appears to be inaccurate.
This story is credited to Bloomberg News, which would seem to be a knowledgeable source, and it may be that you haven’t the resources to properly vet their material. Whatever the case, in its front-page piece about this settlement, also published April 12, the New York Times says that “a chart attached to the settlement explains that the bank will have to pay at most only 30 percent of that money to fulfill the deal.”
So what, one might say, there’s still a big fine. However, such fines, which have somehow become accepted as just another business expense, can only be effectively compared with the profit that Goldman and its peer organizations reap from the lying, cheating and stealing they engage in, in collaboration with leading ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, along with we the people, as represented by our elected officials.
Perhaps the Valley News would consider making amends for publishing this misleading information by offering an overview of the facts of profit and loss at Goldman, its peers, or the financial industry in general during the course of the creation and exploitation of the bogus mortgage-based investment products that triggered the financial crisis of 2008.
Since Americans continue supporting the graft that drives our political system through our acceptance of the unacceptable behavior in the U.S. financial industry — as in U.S. politics — is unlikely to change. However, without accurate news we don’t stand much of a chance.
Chris Weinmann
Norwich
Why Omit Sanders?
Ruth Marcus writes about the historic unpopularity of three of the leading primary candidates. But somehow fails to mention Bernie Sanders, who arguably is a closer second place than Cruz, but who is not unpopular. What gives? Was he left out because it kind of spoils the headline, or because her bias to Hillary Clinton won’t allow him to appear in such a favorable light?
Richard Dybvig
Tunbridge