Although my children, one a graduate of Dartmouth’s Geisel Medical School, are grown, I am concerned about Hartford School Board members who expressed a nonchalant attitude about diversity in the schools (“School Board Declines to Partake in Race Relations Committee,” Feb. 10).
School Board member Paula Nulty said during the meeting that “diversity means different things to different people … Forgive me, but I don’t believe in the whole diversity thing.”
As a black American, I can assure you that implicit biased feelings about black children, especially young black males, is the reason so many black children are treated differently in our schools, meaning punitively, when compared with the same treatment received by their white peers. When people prefer to maintain their narrow views of others, they should not hold an office that affects how children are educated.
Allene Swienckowski
Quechee
It was so disheartening to read in the Valley News on Feb. 10, “School Board Declines to Partake in Race Relations Committee” that three people (Paula Nulty, Nancy Russell and Lori Dickerson) on the Hartford School Board voted against a request from the Selectboard to participate in a newly formed Equity and Diversity Committee.
They voted no despite the fact that the School Board offered no evidence that the current effort in the Hartford School system is even successful. Further complicating the issue, Ms. Nulty was quoted as saying “they’ve (meaning her children) gotten smacked around like you wouldn’t believe” for being pro-life, Catholics, etc. Her own statement suggests that something is seriously awry in the Hartford School system!
Two African-Americans at the meeting, Kevin Christie, a member of the Hartford School Board and Wayne Miller, a Hartford High School graduate, spoke in favor of the School Board’s participation on the committee. Yet more examples of deafness when it come to hearing African-American voices.
Hopefully, the Hartford School Board will reconsider its decision and become a part of an effort to help change the currently stifling environment to one of a welcoming place for all.
Linda Barton
West Lebanon
Join Race Relations Group
I urge the Hartford School Board to join a committee on race relations (“School Board Declines to Partake in Race Relations Committee,” Feb. 10). At first I thought maybe the majority of the board was right: This is Vermont, we don’t discriminate against people. We bend over backwards to be inclusive, don’t we? So why were people saying we needed a committee to confirm that?
I think we should ask the people of color in Hartford. Shouldn’t we make an honest attempt to find out from the people this topic most impacts?
The comments about religious discrimination were interesting but off point. I understand that for white people, religious discrimination might be a proxy to understanding how an African-American feels and experiences Hartford. But wouldn’t it be better to ask directly and then really listen to the responses? I volunteer to be one of the five members of the public on the race relations committee.
Nancy Brittain
White River Junction
The recent piece on Vermont auto inspection ignored legitimate questions, beginning with why cars are inspected at all (“Sticker Shock: Vt.’s New Inspection Rules ‘Long Overdue,’ but Raise Concerns,” Feb. 12). In particular, the reporter could have asked why new cars need inspection, or why they need it after only 15, or even 50,000 miles.
Does a new $50,000 Volvo need inspecting, and if it does, what is that local mechanics know that engineers at auto manufacturers don’t, or the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, for that matter?
Then there are the states that don’t require inspection; according to Wikipedia, only14 of the 50 require annual stickers. Apparently safety has nothing to do with inspection, or, based on experience, the other states would have adopted it sometime in the last 75 years or so. A reporter’s call to one of those state DOTs might have illuminated why they haven’t.
Then there’s the absurdity of it. You live in Fargo, N.D., where there is no inspection. but drive a mile to work in Moorhead, Minn., where there is. Locally, tens of thousands of drivers from states without inspection come to Vermont every year — including a few from both Dakotas — as they have for a century. Will Vermont DMV set up roadblocks on the interstates to keep these “unsafe” cars out? Of course not. (Wonder why people voted for the new president? Now you know — they feel government overreach in the gut, and the pocketbook.)
Auto inspection is an artifact of the 1930s, whose main function is a wealth transfer. Why it continues to exist on the New Hampshire side of the river is only because the average legislator with the new SUV is so dim he hasn’t noticed he’s being ripped off of 50 bucks.
Dick Mackay
Hanover
Negligence and Regulations
I’m scratching my head trying to understand the conclusion Alex Hanson draws in his otherwise excellent article on rusty old Vermont cars (“Winter Beater,” Feb.11). When a car that passed inspection by an unscrupulous mechanic had its brakes fail — a condition the mechanic had discovered but chose to overlook — and an 82-year-old woman was killed as a result, Hanson describes the story as “less about negligence than about the difficult choices faced by people whose resources are stretched impossibly thin.”
He goes on to critique new regulations to improve auto inspections as unfair, and “a victory of Montpelier’s technocrats over the state’s scrappy, improvisational character.” Many people are increasingly vociferous about over-regulation, and some arguments to justify this point view of view are well reasoned and supported by fact. In this case, though, Hanson has joined the chorus without seeming to realize what he is saying: that we need less regulation to preserve Vermont’s character, even if a few old ladies get knocked off.
The article is, surely, about negligence, and just as surely about impossible choices faced by those who are less fortunate. What it isn’t about is over-regulation.
Jonathan Spector
Woodstock
Lymans’ Role in History
I was pleased to learn that Lebanon’s Mayor Tuttle testified in support of naming the new Route 4 bridge crossing the Connecticut River, Lyman Bridge. The Lyman family played an important historical role in the commercial development of “The Point” — the piece of land bounded by the confluence of the Connecticut and White rivers that is now home to Lyman Point Park — and Hartford as a whole. As someone who grew up in White River Junction, worked at the Hotel Coolidge and graduated from Hartford High School, I appreciate the gesture toward the history of this important river crossing and connection between the two towns.
However, I take issue with Mayor Tuttle’s assertion, and the Valley News’ uncritical repetition of her statement, that at the time the Lyman brothers (Justin and Elias) constructed their toll bridge in 1804, it connected Lebanon with what was then “Hartford, N.H.” Of course, by the time of the bridge’s construction, Vermont had been a state for 13 years, having joined the Union on March 4, 1791. Mayor Tuttle was likely referring to the original charter of Hartford on July 4, 1761 by Benning Wentworth, as part of the New Hampshire Grants. However, Wentworth’s grants were soon disputed, and New York won subsequent legal battles to control Vermont territory by 1770.
This gave rise to Ethan Allen and the famed Green Mountain Boys, who, before they fought in the American Revolution, fought to preserve the original town boundaries as laid out by Wentworth. By Jan. 15, 1777, leaders of those towns voted for independence, forming the Republic of New Connecticut; fortunately, it was soon renamed “Vermont.”
I wholeheartedly agree with Mayor Tuttle’s statement that “this bridge, in modern times, is an integral part of our community.” In this case, naming the new bridge after the Lymans also harkens back to an integral historical link between Hartford and Lebanon. However, that bridge, and all subsequent ones, also linked two states: Vermont and New Hampshire.
Ryan Frazer
Durham, N.C.
Numbers Don’t Add Up
Canaan’s town administrator, Mike Samson, made a presentation at Enfield’s Community Center, arguing that Enfield’s taxpayers should pay for a larger part of the Mascoma Regional School District budget. The effect of Mr. Samson’s proposal would be a $600,000 increase in Enfield’s property taxes and a corresponding decrease of $500,000 for Canaan.
To support his argument, Mr. Samson presented a comparison of the financial situation in the two towns. His “Exhibit A” illustrated how the owner of a $100,000 house in Canaan will pay 36 percent more in property tax than the owner of a house of comparable value in Enfield.
While Mr. Samson’s math is technically correct, his comparison is misleading because it fails to account for the fact that property values in Enfield are significantly higher than in Canaan. A fair comparison would look at similar houses in both towns. The tax rate in Enfield is lower because properties have a higher assessed value. Tax revenue raised from similar properties is not very different in the two towns.
Mr. Samson went on to claim that it would be reasonable for Enfield to pay more because Enfield’s tax base is much higher. This makes no sense. One reason that properties in Enfield are more expensive than in Canaan is proximity to the regional centers of Hanover and Lebanon. Enfield’s higher tax assessment does not imply an ability to pay more tax. Only income determines ability to pay.
I have no doubt that some families in Canaan need help. So do some families in Enfield. It is hard to find the numbers to make a clear comparison, but the night of Mr. Samson’s presentation a volunteer worker told us that the number of families who get food assistance is almost the same in both towns. That information is more telling than all of Mr. Samson’s numbers.
We need to work together to solve our problems in the Mascoma Regional School District towns, but the effort needs to be based on facts. Self-serving manipulation of numbers will not be helpful.
Alv Elvestad
Enfield
The Bucks Stop There
I read Meghan McCarthy McPhaul’s Outside Story article in the Feb. 13 Valley News about a buck’s antlers and found it interesting (“A Buck’s Antlers Can Display Dominance and Vigor, or Injury”).
However, there is one statement I question. She wrote, “Rutting bucks will also sometimes urinate on their antlers.”
I have spent countless hours in the woods watching bucks over the past nearly 70 years and have never seen such a thing happen, nor can I imagine how it could.
The bucks she refers to must be some sort of contortionists.
Gary W. Moore
Bradford, Vt.
Appreciative of the VA
Count me in as someone who appreciates the White River Junction VA Hospital. I have been going there for 20 years, and the service has always been top rate.
Mitchell Ota
Hartford
Norwich Lions’ Goals for the Year
The Norwich Lions Club raised and distributed more than $20,000 within the community in 2016, and extends warm thanks to the many who helped make this possible.
Companies, organizations and individuals pulled together to support the annual fair on the town green — our chief fundraising event — allowing us to continue our financial assistance to Holiday Helpers, the Red Logan Dental Clinic, the Norwich Public Library and dozens more.
Besides the fair, highlights included collecting and recycling eyeglasses (the old mailbox outside Dan & Whit’s is the collection point), and the purchase of reading glasses to help aging and visually-challenged women in Zimbabwe (where non-Lion-member volunteers from Norwich are assisting) to continue making a livelihood for themselves and their families. Both efforts tie into Helen Keller’s challenge for Lions to be “knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness.”
In 2016, and in the decades preceding, Norwich Lions also sponsored events to educate and entertain our children and shelter and feed the needy. In some cases, we helped individuals with payment of medical bills and rent. We make regular contributions to The Haven, Listen, needy veterans, the Upper Valley Special Olympics and more.
During 2017, the 100th anniversary of Lions Club International, we plan to take our motto — “We Serve” — to the next level. By planning and implementing a Centennial Community Legacy Project, we can make a lasting contribution to Norwich citizens. Our Centennial Committee, consisting of chairman Henry Scheier and Lions John Lawe and Peter Stanzel, is open to your help in identifying a meaningful project we can all get behind this year. If you would like to help with this project, or consider joining up, please contact Gary DeGasta, 649-3533, Peter Stanzel, 649-2926, or Demo Sofronas, 649-1536.
Demo Sofronas
Norwich Lions Club