Letters to the editor: Aug. 8

Please give to The Charlotte News annual fund campaign

To the Editor:
Please join me in contributing to The Charlotte News’ 2024 Annual Fund Campaign which runs through August.

We are so fortunate to have this staple of our town life, a symbol of our civic pride and the strength of our small but mighty community. So many towns — many much bigger than our own — have lost theirs. But of course, it’s not luck. It’s thanks to the hard work and generosity of neighbors who volunteer, contribute stories and photos, and deliver papers to my mailbox.

And perhaps most important, I’m grateful to all those who make donations to fund this nonprofit’s daily operations. Most of the paper’s budget comes from charitable gifts.

Reading The Charlotte News has become a special moment in my week when I happily step out of the hectic swirl of daily life for a brief respite to savor some time spent with our community. I soak up the news of the faces and the places that make up our special corner of the world. I silently join in celebrating our children’s accomplishments, and I reflect on those who have passed but are remembered by many, thanks to the paper. 

I also take advantage of the handy links in the email newsletter and website to sign up for upcoming programs and adventures to take with my family. The Charlotte News adds so much to my daily life — yours too, I hope.

Donating to support this important cornerstone of our community is easy — you can use the enclosed envelope or give online. Every gift makes a difference in ensuring the paper’s vitality as a treasured community outlet. Thank you.

Susan McCullough
Charlotte

Keep community asset going, donate to The Charlotte News

To the Editor:
The Charlotte News is a staple of my weekly reading activities, including both the biweekly paper copies as well as the weekly emails. I appreciate the wide variety of coverage that The Charlotte News provides our town, such as the comprehensive (and often humorous) reports of the various town meetings. These do a great job of synthesizing the long hours of discussion that our elected officials spend on deciding important town issue

Additionally, I appreciate the space The Charlotte News gives our town events at the library, Grange, senior center and town hall, as well as recreation programs and committee activities. It’s an easy way to stay informed in our wonderful, small community.

As a long-term resident of Charlotte, and past board member of the newspaper, I understand the work required to keep it going. The struggles to keep a small-town paper vibrant, interesting and accessible to readers are well known. Thanks to the regular updates to their strategic plans, The Charlotte News has been able to keep up with the constant evolution in modern communications, from mimeograph printing machines in the late 1950s to electronic deliveries in the 2020s. For this newspaper to continue succeeding in its goals, it requires revenue, in the form of advertising, grants and — most important — donations from the readers who value its content. I have given to the The Charlotte News for decades and will continue to do so. Fellow readers, please consider donating yourselves to keep this consequential community asset going strong.

Please forward your donation to The Charlotte News in the envelope included in the recent fundraising letter and in the latest edition of the newspaper. Donations may also be made online.

Lane Morrison
Charlotte

Where else but The Charlotte News?

To the Editor:
Where else?

Where else would you get a thorough account of what’s happening in Charlotte and nearby communities? Where else in one publication would you gain perspective on gardening, legal issues, recent books (including Charlotte resident authors), thoughts on health care and tempting recipes?

Where else would you learn about our youth and their achievements, whether academic, athletic, social, environmental, civic or entrepreneurial? Where else would you see photos of our beautiful, always-changing landscape as well as Charlotte folks on the move, whether at the Charlotte Town Party, music on the town green or at the town beach? Where else would you discover the extensive and enticing range of activities offered by our library and our senior center? Where else would you find out about our increasing tax rate … (oh, maybe I should leave this one out)? Where else would you be able to scan local businesses when in need?

As a community we are lucky to have The Charlotte News; we all may not read cover to cover yet there is plenty in each issue to enrich our lives. As someone who has valued The Charlotte News as a community resource since arriving here in 1991, I have contributed to the annual campaign and encourage you to consider doing the same.  

Gifts can be made online or with a check in the envelope included with this issue of the newspaper.

Thank you!
Jonathan Silverman
Charlotte

Worried Hinesburg project could increase flood threat

To the Editor:
I’ve been reading with much interest what’s going on with our neighbors upstream sending their water down to those of us that live in the river zones of the LaPlatte River and Lewis Creek.

As Hinesburg looks to grow their tax base with potentially 300 units of housing clustered in or near the town center, it seemed like a good plan — at least in normal times. But most of the planned growth would happen in between the LaPlatte and Patrick Brook, and some homes would be built in the flood hazard area.

With Vermont’s evidence of more frequent and more severe rainstorms, we must avoid the replacement of valuable water retention areas with new impermeable roofs, roads, parking areas and lawns.

The most recent Hinesburg Center II project was denied by the Agency of Natural Resources Vermont in their Act 250 review. The developer is appealing the decision based on “an effort to protect our rights,” stating they would add fill to raise the new homes above the level of any flooding. But filling in the flood plain reduces the opportunity for small waterways to naturally overflow, and without that water retention, other structures downstream will be in even more danger.

It’s great that the new development would not be in danger of flooding, but if they fill in their floodplains with impermeable roofs and roads, I am concerned that Charlotte will be the recipient of worse flooding than we had this summer. It seems like the folks in Charlotte may be interested in what’s coming downstream as it can affect our homes, roads and the water quality of our town beach and lake.

Of course, my personal interest is that we live in one of the oldest structures in Charlotte — originally built in the 1790s as an office to a sawmill on the banks of the LaPlatte River. It has never flooded in 200 years, and we have never seen anything like this in our 40 years next to the usually quiet creek.

The current bridge over the river was not built to allow for more than 7-inch downpours in Hinesburg. It held in place this time, but the culverts for its feeder stream, Mud Hollow Brook, didn’t fare as well.

Spear Street will be closed for a while for repairs, and our neighbors just south of us had damage to their property as a foot or more of swift-moving water overflowed on the road, washing out their driveway and flooding an outbuilding.

After Irene, FEMA remapped our river and concluded our house is vulnerable if the water backs up at the bridge. I contacted the Vermont Agency of Transportation a few years back to see if they could fix the problem they created 75 years ago by building a bridge of insufficient capacity for the unknown concept of climate change — with no luck.

Anyway, I will keep trying to give my 2 cents’ worth to anyone that will listen. We love our home as most people do, and I encourage Charlotters to be aware of the complicated issues around development, even when it appears to be “smart growth” in our neighbors’ town center. I’m no expert on flood mitigation or how to deal with overwhelming problems of climate change, but I’ll keep up my personal efforts to help lessen the effects on our shared environment by lowering our family’s carbon footprint, supporting organizations like the Lewis Creek Association and voting for leaders that value the environment for our children, their children and future generations.

Dave Speidel
Charlotte
(Dave Speidel is a member of The Charlotte News board of directors. The opinions expressed here are his own and not necessarily those of the board.)

Don’t manage senior center as a ‘big revenue’ source

To the Editor:
Recently I read: “For fiscal year 2024, the town fared better with revenues, which totaled more than $60,000, over last year. The big revenue “winners,” town clerk Mary Mead said, were the senior center, recreation programs, interest income, and an unanticipated … grant for town garage.”

I suppose the Irishes, who in large part funded the founding of the Charlotte Senior Center, would be very disappointed to hear such a statement. Why is the town turning the senior center into a cash cow? Three dollars to play bridge? We shouldn’t charge for that. Not all seniors can pay recurring fees for the activities. Of course, classes taught by a paid instructor fall into a different category.

I’d like to see the town manage the senior center as a standalone entity, not a source of “big revenue” for the town.

Hank Kaestner
Shelburne
(Hank Kaestner is a former board member of the Chalotte Senior Center.)

Youth platform for a livable future

To the Editor:
We demand a livable future.

We will no longer allow the conversations about our futures to be distracted by partisan politics, when our generation is in reality united in what we need for futures that are livable. This past week, we all witnessed the historic transition of the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States, from President Joe Biden to Vice President Kamala Harris, and it has created an uproar of conversations around what we want for the future of our country. With this, young people today across the world are considering what comes next in our own lives, and what our futures may hold.

We only want what everyone else wants.

We want to be safe. We want to have the resources we need to live. We want to have communities support us and that we can support. We want to be loved and be able to take care of the people we love. We want to be able to call somewhere home. We want to be treated with respect. We want to be able to dream, and more importantly, we want to be able to plan. We want to be okay today, and be able to know that tomorrow is possible. We need a government that will support us in this.

These things are not controversial; whether we’re Republican, Democrat, Independent or somewhere in between, we all want to live. We just disagree on how to get there, but we can’t let that stop us from creating solutions. Let this be the call for us — youth — to join forces and discuss rather than divide.

We cannot help but understand the things we want and need for our own futures in the context of our collective future. We cannot help but know that our futures are deeply and fundamentally linked to the futures of the people in our generation globally. And we cannot help but see with increasing clarity the many ways that the futures we want are threatened.

We cannot go on pretending that a livable future, in all that that means for our generation, is guaranteed, because it is not.

We call on our government and those with power to stand with us, listen to us and support us in building the livable future we want to see. If those with power want our support, we demand that they support us in achieving the livable future we deserve. And more than that, we ask to be co-pilots, not just passengers, on this plane driving towards our future.

Our generation is not a monolith. We are diverse, with differing needs and desires. Our diversity is part of what makes us so powerful, but we are all just trying to get by in this world. We are all trying to build lives for ourselves. There are imminent and interconnected forces that threaten our ability to do that. Therefore there are broad policy goals that support all of our individual abilities to thrive which we can all support by sharing what we want for our own futures and the ways that these policies support our ability to create that for ourselves.

We ask that young people will share what they want from their future and the ways that government policies for a livable future will allow them to do that using #Youth4aLivableFuture, or visit LinkTree at linktr.ee/youthplatform for more information. A livable future is about all of us, and all the issues that we care about. We must bring people together — moderate Republicans, liberals, independents — over the shared belief that we want a livable future. We may disagree on how to get there, but perhaps we can all come up with solutions that get to the main goal in the end.

We have the ability to build a livable future for all of us, if only we are allowed to do so. Join us, and we can build a brighter future together.

Addie Lentzner
Bennington
Iris Hsiang
Essex