sarahDream Big, Montpelier!
To the Editor,
Montpelier has a unique opportunity in the property on Country Club Road. Creating a planned community with a mixed bag of housing will not only help to solve the housing crisis, but can help improve the tax base of the city. But it must be a mixed bag of housing … single family homes as well as apartment-style townhouses and other types of affordable housing units. It will already have Turtle Island to provide child care for families!
But the city council and the rest of us have to put away our individual opinions and dreams and hire a city planning firm to come up with such a plan. Then we can debate the details. Without a design that balances differing needs for housing and still improves the tax base, the city will become less and less affordable.
A developer alone will not balance these things. Some firm with experience in creating a new “village” must be found and hired before a developer, or two or three, can be brought in to implement such a plan. It is the only way to realize the potential of this site. A south facing hillside with a green below has got to be an ideal place to develop a mixed bag of housing for Montpelier.
Time to dream big dreams, Montpelier, and stop the bickering!
Sally Giddings Smith, Montpelier
The River
All the sudden we could see sandbars
rocks and bones and branches, structures
we had never seen before
surfaced on the new banks.
The dam had only one strand of water.
Nothing to fish, and our squashes dried up.
Our boats scraped and bottomed out,
leaving us marooned.
We danced, chanted, cast spells,
called in the government.
Million-dollar excavations, concrete, external funding dams busted and re-created
seas re-routed
sacrifices, bargains, promises, supplicating and demanding shooting into the clouds
collection of condensation
collective water conservation
Finally a trickle,
and then we had our river again.
But it’s flowing the wrong way.
Gaia Fried, 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.
