A Vigil for Orlando

In the aftermath of the attack in Orlando on Sunday, we call the community to gather on Wednesday from 7-8:30 p.m., including people of faith and of no faith, in a vigil for the Orlando victims (and the rest of us), to be hosted at Our Savior Lutheran Church and Campus Ministry, 5 Summer St., Hanover.

Come as you are able to during this time to stand with the LGBTQ, Muslim, migrant and refugee communities. Those who want to honor the victims with a reading, song, prayer, dance, reflection, exhortation or some other means are invited to do so. If possible, please give us advance notice of your intention by calling 603-643-3703 so that we might provide appropriate space.

This horrific event continues to reveal intolerance and hatred for “the other.” It manifests again our love affair with violence and our use of guns and of hateful rhetoric to feel powerful. Our response must reveal another kind of power. That is the power of love and respect for our neighbor, whoever that neighbor is, and our fierce devotion to our nation as a safe and just place where all can live out their lives without fear.

The Revs. Susan and Michael Thomas

Hanover

Help the Homeless in Lebanon

Upper Valley Humanists brought about a dynamic question-and-answer session at Lebanon United Methodist Church on June 9 about homelessness in the Upper Valley, and focused on how a proposed ordinance to be taken up by Lebanon’s City Council Wednesday would ban about 25 homeless individuals from camping behind (but well away from) Hannaford Supermarket in West Lebanon.

We hope to find a long-term way to help the homeless in our midst, but at this point these individuals keep the area they are sheltering in clean, and stay there only from April to November. (The city uses the area in the winter to store snow after plowing. The homeless are clearly doing their best with the difficult situations they find themselves in, and the location is near Advance Transit routes, grocery stores and for some, places of employment.

The proposed ordinance would criminalize their stay and impose steep fines which they could not pay, only increasing hardship. If banned from sheltering on city land, they will just be pushed out to other towns. Some speakers proposed that the city provide a portable toilet, a dumpster and a spigot on a fire hydrant for water to increase habitability. It would be humane, and the cost would not be excessive and certainly less than policing and enforcement and jailing those who couldn’t pay their fines at Grafton County Jail.

People who spoke were Shawn Donovan, Richard Mello (the city police chief), Rebecca Girrell (pastor of Lebanon United Methodist Church), Bev McKinley (Silent Warriors), Andrew Winter (Twin Pines representative), Diane Munson (Tri-County CAP), Diane Morris (Upper Valley Haven) and homeless individuals, among others. Please join us and show up at Lebanon City Hall Wednesday at 7 p.m. to show your support for tabling the ordinance or having your councilors vote it down.

Diane Munson

Thetford

Criminalizing Homelessness

Last week I attended a meeting at the Lebanon United Methodist Church concerning the proposed ordinance aimed at the presence of homeless people in the city.

Although I have never considered myself homeless, there was a time after I dropped out of school when I had a part-time clerical job and was living in a friend’s barn and showering at the college.

I met local homeless people at the Haven warming shelter when I volunteered briefly a couple of years ago; I have seen them at various public buildings and on the streets. And last week I heard some campers at the meeting.

I’m still learning about this issue and thinking about possible measures, but criminalizing homelessness is not the answer. Making the homeless invisible might make us feel more comfortable, but we should not do this.

Amelia Sereen

Lebanon

No Logic In Proposed Ordinance

I am writing regarding the camp behind the Hanaford Supermarket in West Lebanon. These people are struggling to survive. They have created a community that is located near public transportation and stores. The camp is clean and no disturbances have been reported. The city now wants to criminalize these people by fining them $100; if they cannot pay, the fine becomes $500. What logic is being used here? And failing that, they will serve 90 days in jail. These people need services, not fines and jail. Austin, Texas, has built small homes for 250 homeless; why can’t we do the same?

Deyaa Pavelle

Woodstock

Save Vermont; Stop NewVista

Do you love Vermont? Vermont is being invaded by the builder of a social experiment, David Hall. Sure, you can laugh it off, and when you read the proposal it sounds far-fetched and far off in a sci-fi future; many people say it will never happen, but the reality of it is that this developer has already purchased over 1,500 acres in Vermont and is moving rapidly toward his goal for the NewVista Foundation.

When he achieves the total acreage, he will build a city high in the hills of rural Vermont, cramming 20,000 people into our communities.

Step two involves building several more interconnected cities with a goal of 20 million people in tiny Vermont. His plans of building even one of these monstrosities will destroy the natural texture of the land, even if the development fails. If you are a hunter, fisherman, skier, outdoor enthusiast, leaf peeper, farmer, Vermonter or simply someone who loves the natural beauty of our state, you have an obligation to respond to this threat.

Will Act 250 stop him? Why does it affect you? This should be a wake-up call for all concerned citizens of Vermont, and nationwide. We need to prevent this hostile takeover.

Research and read about his plans and participate in public protests this summer in July and August when Hall plans to be in Vermont. There is a rally planned for June 17 in South Royalton on the South Royalton Bridge from 5-7 p.m.

Stuart Levasseur

Royalton

Teaching Remains Important

A column in the June 3 Valley News by Meg Hansen on the role of scholarship in tenure decisions has moved me to write. I do not dispute her judgment regarding the particular decision that was the article’s focus, but take issue with a single statement she makes: “Teaching excellence, university service and popularity on campus . . . hold little sway in tenure deliberation.” As for teaching, I hope very much that her claim is not true at Dartmouth.

Dartmouth has occupied a rare niche as an outlier in the bifurcated world of American higher education, where the best liberal arts colleges take well-deserved pride in the quality of their teaching, and the great universities bask in their reputation for accomplishment in research and scholarship while garnering vast external funding. While some of the teaching at our universities is doubtless first-rate, there is in general a lack of quality control. Much teaching is done by graduate students and adjuncts, and professors who are abominable teachers can thrive if they are able scholars. Dartmouth has aspired to be without peer as an educational institution while building an ever-stronger position in research and scholarship. Here, undergraduates have opportunities to participate at the cutting edge of their chosen disciplines, opportunities that are much more limited at most liberal arts colleges.

Walter Stockmayer, a chemist who was one of the most distinguished and accomplished professors ever to grace the Dartmouth faculty, likened maintaining an appropriate balance between teaching and research to a mountaineer negotiating an arête, where falling off on one side or the other is a constant threat. The pressure to fall off on the side of research is unrelenting, with the promise it affords of fame and grant money. On the other side there is only a love of students and an idealistic commitment by an institution and its faculty to devote great energy and resources to helping create a future generation of leaders and achievers.

Tenure decisions shape the character of an institution. May Dartmouth’s tenure decisions ever reflect a deep commitment to excellence in undergraduate education.

David M. Lemal

Norwich

The writer is an emeritus professor of chemistry at Dartmouth.

Kale, Dyspepsia and the Co-op

Jim Kenyon can usually be taken with a grain of salt, but his latest dyspeptic diatribe about the Co-op is beyond the pale. He apparently has no clue how the Co-op board works nor how much effort the elected members put into their volunteer tasks.

I was on the Co-op board for nine years back in the 1990s and know personally the importance of the board’s work and the hours the many dedicated board members and Co-op administration put in to assure that the Co-op maintains and expands services to members and the community. Current board members put in even more hours dealing with the much-increased complexity of a larger business. Perhaps Mr. Kenyon missed the development of the Lebanon store and the revitalization of the White River Junction grocery store, and he may have missed the huge expansion of local product sourcing that benefits members and producers alike. And he has no clue how the $70 million annual business achieved that size — it has tripled in the past 20 years. The number of satisfied employees has also grown greatly and they, by their own evaluations, mark the Co-op as a great place to work.

Mr. Kenyon is happy to take a low road, throwing out snide aspersions as to the motivation of Co-op board and staff alike in guiding and running this valuable community resource. “Glorified garden club,” indeed! For shame to so characterize a group of volunteers who dedicate 20 hours or more per month on Co-op meetings and committee work to keep the Co-op strong and improving. And to characterize the board’s concern as focused on dinner choices is really insulting.

The Co-op has some hard work ahead. Replacing Terry Appleby’s wisdom in cooperative business is a daunting task — there are very few folks with his talents in the cooperative universe, so as with Supreme Court positions, it behooved board members to act expeditiously in their search. As Mr. Kenyon could find out, there is nothing in the Co-op bylaws that says the board should abrogate their responsibilities by waiting for the board elections to begin the difficult search for the next general manager.

Mr. Kenyon comes to issues with a mindset that all information should be openly available to him. It would be a rare business indeed that would open its books to potential competitors — I’d bet the Valley News would shy away from revealing Mr. Kenyon’s pay rate. I realize that there’s a difference between a privately owned corporation and a member-owned cooperative. Still, there are business issues that no responsible Co-op member would want in the hands of, say, Coop Foodstore “wannabes.” So, Mr. Kenyon, please chill out and be a little more respectful of those who serve you and your local community through working for and being on the board of the Co-op . . . and keep buying that locally produced organic kale. I’ve heard it has a calming effect.

Andrew Daubenspeck

Lebanon

School Spending Priorities

In these days when a majority of Upper Valley homeowners are begging for relief from property taxes (nearly 70 percent of which go to schools, many with shrinking enrollments), it’s not surprising that many are concerned and closely scrutinizing school budgets. But recent issues raised in our local newspapers (Vermont Standard, Valley News) reveal some very confusing ideas about the complex issue of school spending.

One school union, Woodstock Middle/High School, faced with need to hold down costs, often resorts to cutting teaching positions; however, it is planning to hire and pay “consultants” to remedy the simple issue of dress codes. Now I ask, are there really experts on this topic? Are not sensible parents/teachers/staff capable of formulating and enforcing a code? How about: all students/teachers/staff be minimally clothed from the collar bone to top of knee. No 3 inches here, 7 inches there nonsense. Collar bone to knee. The end. Free of charge.

In the June 6 Sunday Valley News Perspectives section we had an educationally thoughtful and fiscally sound article headlined “Do We Really Need School Sports?” Yes, a very controversial issue, but one deserving attention and consideration rather than being dismissed as non-negotiable. The author, Skip Chalker, raised many serious points that speak to the common claims of building health, character and discipline and counters with facts and sensible views that should make us think rather than give a knee-jerk reaction to a (recently enshrined) sacred cow.

However, directly below Mr. Chalker’s take on cost-cutting is columnist Noah Smith’s view: “World Travel Is Good For Young People; Let’s Pay for It.” Indeed, world travel is good for all people, but isn’t it a bit odd to propose an $8 billion travel program while we are cutting teaching positions for foreign languages, to say nothing of art and literature, the very standard doorways to understanding other cultures?

My point is not to ban sports or travel (I would ban frivolous consultants), but sadly to outline how scattered is our thinking about the crucial issue of education in and for today’s world. We are all over the map.

Terrie Curran

South Woodstock

Thanks for Helping the Buses Roll

On behalf of the staff and board of directors of Advance Transit, we would like to take this opportunity — following completion of all town meetings — to express our sincere thanks to the voters of Hanover, Lebanon, Hartford, Norwich, Enfield and Canaan, for again generously supporting our valuable services for Upper Valley residents.

Last year Advance Transit saw over 900,000 boardings on its commuter and shuttle routes, in addition to its trips for those with disabilities. As this ridership continues to grow annually, AT is even more appreciative of the support of communities, businesses and individual donors who make our important services possible.

We would also like to take this opportunity to alert the residents of the Upper Valley of a new smart phone app which will allow riders — and hopefully, riders-to-be — to more accurately track their desired routes and coordinate boardings with their work and personal schedules. The Advance Transit app may be found in both Google Apps and Apple. Try it out; see how it works for you.

Again, our sincere thanks for the wonderful support.

Jim Tonkovich

President, Advance Transit Board of Directors

Van Chesnut

Executive Director

Another Winner From Mahler

Once again, Don Mahler wrote a thoughtful and touching article about Mohammed Ali. I miss his regular sports reporting since his retirement !

Karen Carter

Hartford