Disc golf. Waterfront Manager Adam Cate. For the Burlington Parks & Recreation Commission, the controversies keep on coming. The latest: an entrepreneur’s proposal to bring guided tours, via Segways, to the Burlington Bike Path and some city sidewalks. Interested parties expect a lively public hearing on the issue next Tuesday.... Read more

Is it a coincidence that Winooski public schools have been dragged into two political controversies within months of each other? Some say both episodes were instigated by school board member Doug Isham, a news junkie who describes himself as “leaning conservative.”... Read more

Patent Lie
[Re: “Tech Entrepreneurs Await State’s New Seed-Money Fund,” October 20]: Referring to the original legislative proposal, the article stated, “Facing the deepest fiscal crisis in years, the legislature shot down two of the wishes — a business tax credit for research and development, and tax exemptions for income on certain kinds of patents — because it would have forfeited badly needed state tax revenues.”... Read more

Since leaving the Democratic Party in September, State Auditor Tom Salmon has been on a one-man crusade to convert folks to his Church of Fiscal Responsibility.

He’s been a hit not only at GOP rallies and fundraisers around the state; he’s gone right into the lion’s den — telling union workers they should take pay cuts and the unemployed they should expect less money per week.... Read more

Bright rays of sunlight flooded the sanctuary of Burlington’s Unitarian Universalist Church last Saturday afternoon in fitting tribute to a man who spent much of his life illuminating injustice. John Whitehead Tucker III, a civil rights activist and leader of Burlington’s African American community, was being eulogized.... Read more

What's got 2 pounds of beef, 4 ounces of bleu cheese, six slices of bacon and two eggs served on a crusty boule usually hollowed out for a soup bowl? The Reservoir's Double Truck Driver, voted best burger in Waterbury. Can Seven Days Food Writer Alice Levitt top Hen of the Wood's Jordan Ware in devouring the giant burger?

One day while walking in the Northeast Kingdom, Meredith Holch noticed one of her dairy farmer neighbors was building a new barn. “A light went off in my head, and I thought, Oh, they must be getting migrant workers,” recalls Holch. She looked out for the workers on her daily walks for several months, but never saw any. Then an ESL teacher of her acquaintance confirmed that the farm had been employing migrants for a year and a half.... Read more

Deep recession, rampant unemployment, disaffected youth — Road, staged this weekend by the Middlebury College Theatre Department, seems to feature ripped-from-the-headlines themes. But Jim Cartwright’s play doesn’t take place in Anytown, U.S.A., in 2009. These circumstances grip an unnamed town in the playwright’s native Lancashire, England, in 1986.... Read more

A piece of painted wood in the University of Vermont’s Davis Center bears these words: “I try to remind myself that I am on the outside free looking in at my mother who is trapped in this prison. But in reality I live in a cage as well, a cage without love and affection.”

The words, written by the child of an imprisoned woman in Columbus, Ohio, pop off their makeshift canvas. They bring to mind urban graffiti, only far more poignant.... Read more

Jay Fleury is a private man with an aversion to cameras. Ask his age and he replies, “Over 35 and under death.” He could be St. Albans’ most eccentric enigma. With gold-topped cane in hand and either a leather baseball cap or brown ushanka covering his clean-shaven head, Fleury takes daily strolls along St. Albans City’s Main Street, visiting downtown merchants and patronizing various restaurants. He calls St. Albans his baby.

“And I should take care of my baby,” he says.... Read more