sarahKeep “Unhoused” Out of Headline
The headline within a recent Montpelier Bridge news article read, “Montpelier Police Shoot Unhoused Man with ‘Bean Bag Rounds.’” The term “unhoused” was also employed within the article itself.
Why The Bridge found it necessary to include the person’s housing status or the lack thereof boggles the mind.
Even if the term might have been within the police report, using it within the title as well as the article was not merely sensationist as well as unnecessary, but to my way of thinking is clearly discriminatory and stigmatizing.
When someone who is housed is bean bagged or pepper sprayed, does the headline and article read, “housed person shot with bean bag” and so on?
No, of course not.
Why not?
Because it is obviously both irrelevant as well as irresponsible.
The news article title should have read, “Montpelier Police Shoot Man with ‘Bean Bag Rounds.’” Period.
The Bridge should apologize for its error and recant the term from the title and article asap as well as making sure that the term is not used in such instances again.
Morgan Brown, Montpelier
Housing: More Voices Need to Be Heard
After reading the article on the Unofficial Housing Survey in the July 23 issue of The Bridge, I was a little annoyed with the tone of the article.
“The biggest takeaway is that more people would prefer to own and live in a yurt or tiny home ….” No, the biggest takeaway is that out of 7,915 (2024) Montpelier residents, only 262 took the survey, or 3.3% of residents. So is the biggest takeaway is that we are only hearing from the most affluent residents in town? The lack of housing is stressful, frustrating, and feels like it will never get better because what feels like a majority or, again, maybe the more affluent voices in town are strongly opposed to making change to better our community for the long run. How many store fronts will become vacant because we don’t have enough residents to frequent the shops? The residents should be the priority that live here and the members of our daily community; I feel that the biggest take away should be how do we actually reach the bigger population to hear voices of all or at least 80% of residents and to actually be proactive in creating a solution of providing more houses instead of just talking about it.
Jessica Oparowski, Montpelier
Thanks for Bill Fraser’s Service
To the Editor:
I read the farewell by Bill Fraser and wanted to thank him for his service. Personally, I wished he was staying on.
The larger point is that the decision to change leadership was made by a small group of people in secret meetings. I don’t support that.
I believe the people of Montpelier are capable of voting on who is leading our city. We are smart and capable enough to judge the qualifications of our leader. I support a transition to a full-time elected mayor. Let the people decide! Transparently and democratically.
Steve Howard, Montpelier
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.
