Hartford assessments skyrocket

Until a few years ago I held a Vermont real estate license after teaching English at Hartford High for 24 years. I suspected this year’s Hartford property reassessment might increase my homestead value 50% and was holding my breath in preparation for such a hefty increase.

Instead Hartford increased my home with its modest hillside plot an unconscionable nearly 100%.

Most of the folks on my road have the same nearly 100% increase I see after using the comparison device available online

Let’s be frank. The town needed to increase its tax base so it hired some fancy assessment firm from out of state who simply applied out of state prices to Vermont properties and thought they could get away with it.

COVID had made out-of-staters gobble up Vermont houses as a kind of pandemic insurance since the virus didn’t overwhelm our state’s tiny population. Since Vermonters already engage in social distancing by virtue of their Yankee upbringing and the rugged Green Mountain terrain, we were a safe haven for virus-weary down-country folk crammed together like sardines.

The fancy-dan assessors sure as shootin’ weren’t Vermont assessors because my property isn’t worth 100% more than the last assessment.

I wouldn’t pay that amount for it and no one else will now that pandemic-panic is a fading memory.

The out-of-state assessors know it and I know it and our town officials should blush with shame at their role in trying to hoodwink ordinary taxpayers this way by using pandemic fear to gin-up the tax base.

Shame on you Hartford. Shame on you.

Paul Keane

Hartford Village

Is this fish extinct?

Steve Taylor’s story about the transformation of the Connecticut River from what Katharine Hepburn called “the world’s most beautifully landscaped cesspool” to a river that is now suitable for boating, fishing and swimming (“A Look Back: Fishable and Swimmable”; May 5) reminded me of the late Charlie Spencer, an avid fisherman, and a columnist and sportswriter for the Rutland Herald. More than once in his outdoor columns of the 1960s and early ’70s, Charlie wrote about a type of fish then abundant in the Connecticut River: the “finless brown.” Readers from Windsor and other communities bordering the river knew the “finless brown” was not a catch-and-release fish.

Steve Crimmin

East Thetford

Oppose cuts to Medicaid

The Budget Bill of 2025 is in process of Reconciliation. One item being discussed is to cut billions of dollars from Medicaid.

Medicaid provides health care coverage for persons who have a low income, adults and children who are disabled, children in foster care, pregnant women and the elderly. These individuals then will have reduced or no health care coverage. Medicaid often pays for long term care for elderly and disabled, as Medicare does not cover chronic care. Elderly and the disabled often are on a fixed budget, thus Medicaid helps to cover these care needs. Elderly who have been able to pay for some of these long-term care options can run out of retirement money later in their years, and have to apply for Medicaid. If Medicaid is not available, then it is unclear how they will receive assistance for care needs, let alone where they will reside, especially for those who have no remaining family, or their families cannot care for them physically.

Hospitals, doctors’ offices, nursing homes, home health agencies, and caregivers need payment for services as does any business. Patients that now have Medicaid may not be covered and their health care providers will not receive reimbursement for care. Reimbursement helps all these providers to keep their doors open. All the agencies and providers that cover Medicaid likely will need to lay off staff as reimbursement decreases, and likely lead to closure of these agencies, which will affect all of us, not just Medicaid patients.

Please contact your representatives and senators and let them know how you would feel if you or a relative or friend would be affected by these Medicaid cuts. How would you be affected, if you were no longer able to use a hospital or doctor’s office in your area, because it has closed? You have a chance to make your concerns heard before it is too late.

Theresa Hatin

Ascutney

Orwell and Trump

Trump’s new slogan “Trump Was Right About Everything” reminds us of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

You may remember Boxer, the hardest worker on the farm and the truest believer in its leader, Napoleon. No matter how much the farm suffers, Boxer repeats, “Napoleon is always right. I will work harder.” Boxer’s reward? When he’s unable to work, he’s surreptitiously sold to the knackers. His comrades don’t care or dare to question his fate. They hope not to be next.

Orwell wrote about Stalinist USSR but meant to warn us that dictatorships can take control anywhere. Let us learn from the past, not repeat it. Let us learn how not to be next.

“The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.” — Thomas Paine

Thanks to the Valley News for printing fearless editorials and letters. Thanks to the writers of those editorials and letters.

Rick Senuta

Hartford