At one time, Lyme Road in Hanover did have “an amply wide on-road bicycle lane” its entire length north from the medical school, but not since the summer of 2016. A 5-foot grass strip along the new multi-use path that was installed back then absorbed what had been a 5-foot shoulder, which is now only 18 inches wide in some places. Bike along there now southbound and drivers will pull into the other lane to give you some space. (Thanks!)
The grass strip had to be that wide to accommodate a line of trees, because there’s a town tree budget that has to be spent. Instead of taking the paved shoulder, the path could have taken a few feet off the golf course, including along a hole that has been disused for years.
Lyme Road, including the sidewalk, was perfectly adequate since it was widened 50 years ago. That was before the do-gooder bicycle-pedestrian committee couldn’t say no to the Public Works Department’s annual need for something to do in the summer, however poorly thought through the concept was.
This year it was the endless sidewalk job along Lebanon Street, which any contractor would have completed in half the time. But in the absence of management, which nobody in this town wants to have anything to do with, sloppiness is what you’re going to get.
Dick Mackay
Hanover
The Valley News article “Officials: Uptick in Tick-Borne Diseases to Continue” (Oct. 24) states that no one can explain the increase in Lyme disease in Vermont, starting roughly in 2010. Oddly, it didn’t mention deer.
One constant in higher incidence of Lyme disease is an overabundance of deer. Adult deer ticks prefer to lodge on large mammals like deer for the female’s final blood meal, and also to locate a mate. Abundant deer make this mating job much easier.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that over the three-year period from 2013-2015, Vermont had the country’s highest rate of confirmed cases per 100,000 persons, closely followed by Maine and New Hampshire. The incidence of Lyme disease began to increase significantly for these three states in 2007.
Black-legged tick (commonly called deer tick) populations fluctuate widely from year to year. The incidence of Lyme disease similarly fluctuates. Many factors contribute to the survival of deer ticks. Certain weather conditions and even an abundant acorn crop are related to an increase in deer mice populations, so immature ticks can more likely obtain the Lyme disease bacteria when they feed on mice.
A few years back, at the Plainfield deer check station, I helped collect deer ticks for the state entomologist to test for Lyme disease. We removed ticks from the fur on one square foot of a deer’s shoulder; some deer had more than 20 ticks in that small area. Most of the female ticks were engorged to the size of a fingernail and many had a tiny male tick attached to them. The female will then fall to the ground, overwinter and lay her eggs in the next spring.
When it is easy for an adult tick to locate deer and a mate, the disease will be sure to increase.
Barbara McIlroy
Etna
A Race of Great Interest
I note with interest the number of letters about the Sullivan District 1 House seat in New Hampshire. It makes sense to me that the two candidates draw so much attention. One has a distinguished career in education, while the other, Margaret Drye, seems to share Donald Trump’s views on a number of issues. For many months I watched her preside over our Hanover Food Co-op board meetings and did not like what I saw. I thought her favoritism held our Co-op back from the badly needed progress we finally made after she was gone from the board.
Because of last November, many of us are watching this race as a weather vane for the future.
When enough voters are misinformed, “Trump happens.”
Ulrike von Moltke
Norwich
The Oct. 30 editorial, “Consumers Take a Loss,” credited to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, addresses an astonishing turn of events that seems to have passed under the radar of much of the American public.
Or it may be that those of us who haven’t been numbed by the Trump administration’s onslaught of duplicity and deceit actually believe that Americans will be better off by limiting our own right to justice in an open court of law.
On Oct. 25, the House followed the Senate in voting to deny Americans the right to pursue grievances against financial institutions collectively. Once Donald Trump signs this bill into law, the next time a Wells Fargo or another bank cheats you or me or even millions of Americans — which will happen as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow — we’ll be limited to individual arbitration. It’ll be you or me versus, say, Equifax, rather than those of us who have grievances versus Equifax. As the editorial puts it, “The worst that’ll happen to (financial institutions) is that a few individual customers will get disputes arbitrated behind closed doors for a relatively small payout.”
Increasingly — and unsustainably — the golden rule in the United States is that those who have the gold and spend just a bit of it on political campaign contributions make the rules. Citizens United burst the levee by declaring that corporations have the rights of citizens, yet we citizens are vulnerable to legal redress for illegal behavior on our part, while the exposure of financial firms is to be limited and any redress determined under a cloak of secrecy. The deck is stacked. The game continues with the wealthy and powerful having a legislated advantage bought and paid for, immoral though that is.
Or maybe the reality-based among us have it wrong, and America will actually be rendered “great again” by, for instance, suppressing Americans’ right to confront injustice in a court of law.
Ya think?
Chris Weinmann
Norwich
Democrats and Guns
I’ve been informed by the Democrats that, while I’m far too stupid and irresponsible to be allowed access to firearms, they would welcome my support at the polls. Of course, my feeble brain is at a loss as to whether my infirmity is something they’re prepared to overlook or something they’re prepared to exploit, but my fully functional gut, which deals with matters of this nature on a regular basis, says it’s likely the latter.
Anthony Stimson
Lebanon