sarah
Sett the Record Straight
To the Editor:
As always, I enjoyed the April 2 edition of The Bridge, but wanted to offer a small correction: the caption on the photo on page 1 of the pavement operations (on State Street) calls the uncovered blocks “cobblestones.” This is a frequently misapplied term. Those are really Belgian blocks, sometimes called “setts.” They are quarried stone (most often granite) that is cut into pavers. (These were probably sourced right down the road, in Barre.) Cobblestones are naturally occurring riverbed or field stones and are indeed used for paving, but they are quite distinctly different from the blocks pictured: Belgian blocks are rectangular, while cobbles are rounded and irregular in shape and often in size.
I learned this distinction close to 70 years ago, from my father, a native Philadelphian (1900–1968), who was at pains to point out that most of the “cobblestone” streets in the city were actually paved with setts, and that he had witnessed some of the setts being laid in his own early years.
Thanks for a great paper! And for your excellent coverage of important issues.
Gina Logan, Braintree
Calculate Embodied Energy
To the Editor:
In response to Mark Adair’s “Unaffordable Affordable Housing” commentary in the April 2–15 issue; thank you for bringing embodied energy into the Vermont planning discussion.
The energy we are responsible for when we, say, drive a car to get an ingredient for dinner, isn’t just the gas or electricity required to propel and stop the vehicle. There is a history of energy invested in the car’s upkeep and manufacture, including the energy required to build the car, including the energy used by assembly workers, energy required to create or mine materials in the car, to smelt ore, manufacture plastics, dig the mine, make the mining equipment and operate it, and so on. The car’s embodied energy is its share of everything it took to get and fabricate the materials in it, including, for example, the food, housing, energy usage, etc., for all the workers and executives, sales people, etc., along the way.
By tracing energy expenditures as far back as possible (without going mad), it is clear that nothing (in America, or in most of the world) is sustainable.
I do not agree with Mr. Adair’s conclusion that we should therefore skip providing housing for the unhoused. But we should heed his concern about embodied energy, and ask engineers and scientists to devise housing with minimal embodied energy while doing the job well and durably.
We should also develop standards for everybody’s housing: having money should not be a license to heap more abuse on the only planet we’ve got.
I am interested in participating in a discussion about how far back we go in assigning embodied energy before the computation becomes pointlessly trivial. Anyone who would like to create and join such a discussion can email me at permaculturemail@aol.com.
Dan Hemenway, Montpelier
An Unusual Housing Solution?
To the Editor:
I found Mark Adair’s “Unaffordable Affordable Housing” commentary in the April 2, 2025 issue of The Bridge well researched and compelling. His thesis — that housing construction creates additional carbon air pollution — made me wonder if he might perceive a risky, controversial Soviet Union experiment around 45 years ago as one potential solution. As I remember it, newborn babies fresh out of their mothers’ wombs were placed immediately in a pool of unheated water.
At first floating on their backs, these babies supposedly soon learned automatically how to swim. I remember seeing a video that showed them racing back and forth underwater. Of course, they were carefully watched and attended to. Also, of course, they were taken out of their pools for breast feeding. But as they matured they never needed to be in heated homes. In fact, in cold winter pictures I saw them sitting in their teens and older ages on ice. Their clothing looked more like spring than cold weather attire. It goes without saying that this all resulted in speculation that humans evolved from water. Finally, one wonders what happened to apparently discontinue this water “solution.”
All this reminds me of people I’ve known who, having grown up in homes without basements, rarely need winter clothing.
Are these things to think about? If taken seriously could something like this really be of interest to housing developers?
Ron Merkin, Montpelier
Report Real Estimates
To the Editor:
Phil Dodd’s helpful review of the status of housing plans for the Country Club Road site (March 5–18 issue) includes a timeline of events leading up to the present. I have a quibble with one item. “Dec. 2023: One councilor estimates that the building could cost $44 to $50 million, depending on whether it had a pool.” That councilor is a veteran builder who knows a lot about estimating. In this case he was just spitballing: he took the per square foot cost of Winooski’s recreation center and applied it to the square footage of a very different Montpelier scenario. The testifying expert immediately explained that most of Montpelier’s square footage would be accommodated by a low-cost barn structure. So it’s pretty clear that this non-estimate was a non-event and doesn’t belong on the timeline. However, an important related event should be noted in its place. “Dec. 2023: In a misleading, unfounded, sensational headline, the Montpelier Bridge promotes the idea that a recreation center will cost $44 million.”
I don’t know if it warrants another timeline entry now, in March 2025, but it’s sad that The Bridge is continuing to push the idea of a ridiculously expensive rec center. How about instead reporting that we have actual estimates, by builders, based on architectural drawings, that are in the range $15–$22 million? Dear Editor, I ask you to please reflect on whether The Bridge wants to continue allowing its opinions to skew its presentation of facts to the degree exemplified by its coverage of recreation center costs.
Chris Hancock, Montpelier
Are Rallies Enough?
To the Editor:
What is the core of Cory Booker’s 25-hour message? “[If we don’t speak out and serve now] what we will have to repent is not for the words and violent actions of bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of good people. This is our moral moment.”
I wish I trusted that rallies, demonstrations, and marches are enough. Did we make a difference on April 5 with the “Hands Off” marches? Will we get behind a Cory Booker to be our next leader? Will we convince Muskites to spend their billions on infrastructure and climate change initiatives and the needs of those hard-working people who can’t afford a good meal on their family table, and not on election tampering? So many questions. Lots of answers. Not enough quality leaders to make the difference. Too much ego and greed.
The scariest poster I saw at the recent rally was a Trump facial with his mouth open and a swastika for a tongue. For me it was too close to my German Jewish roots. Are we there again? Pray not. I also took issue with hate language and low, infantile blows like references to the President’s body parts. We are better than that. We can’t fight negative fires with negative fires, even if in jest. It kindles the wrong values.
We need a force of leaders willing to work without compensation expectations, monetary or otherwise. We need leaders who are genuinely for the people, all of us, not just minorities. All of us! We/I crave to once again feel proud to be an American, and to call our nation great again.
Dot Helling, Adamant
The U.S. has gone off the rails!
To the Editor:
I’ve been around for 88 years and have never seen anything like this happening to our country. under the present federal government, the people will be weaker, sicker, poorer, and unable to recover from the more powerful changes of nature due to the use of fossil fuels. We will be more dangerous to the other nations of the world. We will cause chaos from this unpredictable, violent, unstable, immature, and irresponsible leader. This administration is at war with its people.
Rochelle Dorfam, Montpelier
We are in a Crisis
To the Editor:
I don’t know about you, but I’m utterly incensed about Gov. Scott’s April 9 press release: “Importance of Rising Above the National Rhetoric.” I wrote him a letter telling him so. I don’t think Gov. Scott understands how outraged many of us are. He’s widely missing the mark amidst this constitutional crisis.
Our country is sliding precipitously into autocracy. Many autocratic experts say we are already there; some of them are leaving the country, which tells us something.
Yet, Gov. Scott has the audacity to say, “… we must not allow ourselves to be distracted or live in a constant state of fear, anger, or outrage over the next 45 months.” Being afraid and angry is a RATIONAL response to a fascist in the White House attempting to seize unfettered executive power via intimidation, control, and extortion. It’s a rational response to people snatched off the streets and sent to a foreign gulag without due process. How dare Gov. Scott scold us to dial down our rhetoric. Our governor should NOT be telling us how to feel or how to speak at this moment, or at any moment.
Perhaps it is Phil Scott who should revisit the difference between rhetoric and reality. We are not in “business as usual” here in Vermont or in America. I have clients in other countries who clearly see the danger we are in, yet our own governor essentially says, “Oh, just carry on as usual and rise above the chaos.” He is out to lunch.
My plea to you, fellow citizens is, Don’t let yourself get taken out to lunch. Autocratic experts say we, the people, are the only ones who can stop this. Please stay strong and fight for our democracy.
Amabel Kylee Síorghlas, Marshfield
Letters to the editor represent the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of The Bridge. Submit your letter by email to editor@montpelierbridge.com. Preference is given to submissions by those who live in central Vermont, should not exceed 300 words in length, and may be edited for brevity and accuracy.
