Lavoie Should Resign

[Re "Law and Disorder: Legislators Dig In for an Impeachment Drama Involving Franklin County Law Enforcement," May 10]: The Seven Days article about the impeachment investigation initiated against the Franklin County state's attorney involves some very serious, ongoing allegations that should be fully and promptly investigated and taken seriously.

I support the impeachment investigation. My comments in the May 10 article were taken out of context. When I said there should be no rush to judgment, I was referring to a previous case involving judge Edward Cashman.

When questioned by Seven Days, I had not read the investigative report. Having read it, I see there appears to be substantial evidence of misconduct, and I fully support the impeachment inquiry. I urge the Franklin County state's attorney to resign.

Vince Illuzzi

Newport

'Softball' Interview

[Re "Virgie Tovar, Author and Expert on Weight-Based Discrimination, to Speak at UVM Thursday," April 25, online]: I'm disappointed that food writer Melissa Pasanen did not question Virgie Tovar's statement: "Your body likely will not fundamentally change in the long run ... You will most likely always be a fat person, and, let me tell you, that isn't a bad thing."

Steadily rising obesity rates over the past 50 years indicate that many people's bodies have fundamentally changed, and the corresponding increase of obesity-related diseases indicates that that is, in fact, a bad thing. Tovar makes no distinction between acknowledging poor health and shaming those who suffer from it. She speaks of loving oneself, but what could be more loving than doing all you can to live a long, healthy, mobile life?

Tovar has the right to express her views in print and in public, but I expected better from Seven Days than a softball interview that lets falsehoods go unchallenged.

Skye Makaris

Winooski

Protect Tenants

Thank you for the article about the tenants displaced from their apartments on St. Paul Street ["Burned: A Fire Shuttered Their Burlington Apartment Building. Where to Next?" May 10]. We have heard much from the current city administration about the urgent need for more housing, yet when tenants are thrown into homelessness, the response from Burlington Code Enforcement is a shrug of the shoulders. If landlord Joe Handy can get away with calling a fire caused by inadequate, outdated wiring an "act of God" and can evade his responsibility to help the tenants displaced by his neglect, then the City of Burlington's hypocrisy has no limits. No more new housing until current tenant law is enforced and low-income renters — and all renters! — are protected.

Andrew Simon

Burlington

Missing Masters

[Re "String Theories," May 10]: Profiling Vermont luthiers, Seven Days overlooked Tucker Barrett and Douglas Cox in Brattleboro, who are as eminent as those you profiled. Why?

Howard Fairman

Putney

Editor's note: We couldn't include every Vermont luthier in a single story.

Try 'Living Lettuce'

Thank you for Melissa Pasanen's coverage of Finn & Roots in the April 25 food section ["Leaves and Fishes: Bakersfield Aquaponics Farmer Grapples With Technical and Market Hurdles"]. In Vermont, we are obviously spoiled with the abundance and variety of local produce all year long, but this past winter I had the impulse to buy a package of their living lettuce with intact roots, and it has become my very favorite Vermont green.

I even find myself going up to other shoppers whom I see examining their somewhat curious packaging of the living lettuce, with a little ball of roots attached, and convincing them that they won't be disappointed if they give the Finn & Roots lettuce a try.

I love the backstory of how this farm was rescued and how it is now finding a new life. If they continue to produce such high-quality produce, their future will be a bright one. It's a true win-win for farmer and consumer.

Nancy Berger

Shelburne

Better Than Twitter

Seven Days deputy publisher Cathy Resmer said Seven Days continues to use Twitter despite all the problems mentioned in [From the Deputy Publisher: "RIP, Twitter?" April 26]. I hope Seven Days reconsiders this decision. By continuing to use Twitter, Seven Days is contributing to the problem of supporting an organization that is biased and self-serving. Please find another, more reputable means of sharing your breaking news.

Maria Barrett

Richmond

Grammar Advice

No longer able to contain my feelings, I must register disgust with the "Ask the Reverend" column regarding "fisting" [April 5]. No, my issue is not with the subject matter. Rather, it's concerning the butchered grammar so pervasive in communications nowadays. The plural words "they" or "their" when obviously referencing a singular antecedent can easily be rearranged to maintain syntactical sense without offense to anyone. For instance, "but jewelry should be removed" or "once inside, a fist can be clenched and a mouth or other hand can join in the action." Basically, one can screw with apparently anyone or anything desired, but please refrain from doing it with our centuries-old, beloved English language. It is unworthy of true journalism, OK? No hard feelings.

Jeremy W. Bond

Winooski

Hypocrisy in Print

[Re Feedback: "S.100 Will Ruin Vermont," May 3]: I find Rosanne Greco's letter to be hypocritical, when she herself moved here and lives in a house that once sat on pastoral farmland with views of mountains, meadows and wildlife. Vermont does have a housing crisis, including those currently unhoused, young Vermonters trying to buy their first home, and hardworking residents needing a bigger home for a growing family. Act 250 and local zoning restrictions do need revising and have contributed to the housing and workforce crisis we find ourselves in today. S.100 is a start in trying to fix those obstacles for future homeowners. Why is it OK for Rosanne Greco to move here and enjoy Vermont's beauty but shut the door on anyone else wanting the same dream of owning a home in Vermont?

Patricia Underwood Weaver 

Milton

Proposal for Memorial

[Re Last 7: "Forget Memorial?" April 12]: Wow! 2016 was a bad year for downtown Burlington with the mall demo and Memorial Auditorium being condemned. What do our elected officials continue to offer as the solution? Sell downtown Burlington properties to the highest bidder. Maybe the mayor throwing in a parking lot will attract Memorial buyers?

After living through "the pit" fiasco, have we, seven years later, learned anything? Where is the leadership and vision for making the Queen City even more amazing? For Memorial, the mayor gave the council two choices: Keep Memorial and sell it or take it down. There was no vision about what we could do if we took it down and used the site to honor veterans and benefit Burlington.

Here is just one idea: Memorial sits at the gateway to Burlington and the city-owned land could be used to honor veterans and welcome locals and visitors with a veterans' park and a welcome center! And a permanent banner over Main Street would read: "Welcome to the Queen City!"

Downtown Burlington already has great amenities: parks, City Market, the library, the Roxy and Church Street. But downtown Burlington's reputation has suffered greatly in the past seven years, and selling off Burlington to out-of-state developers will not improve the city.

Just looking at the graffiti on city-"managed" Memorial and the old YMCA building is really depressing. We can do better. We can find a way and funding if we care enough to.

Steph Holdridge

Burlington

Parking Power

I appreciated Kevin McCallum's "Electric Avenues" article in the April 12 issue of Seven Days. In the discussion of debate over large-scale solar installations in Vermont, the author mentions tangentially the option of covering parking lots with solar canopies. This option deserves more than passing consideration.

Some Vermonters have built individual carports to host solar arrays. However, a recent Mother Jones cover article by Middlebury College scholar Bill McKibben presents some hopeful data points on industrial-strength parking installations. Using Walmart Supercenter parking lots as the example, the article points out that the solar canopies provide, among other things, efficient use of non-ag space, air temperature cooling, charging for electric vehicles, etc. Estimated square miles of large parking lots nationwide: 1,400 square miles. That's a lot of capacity for solar power installation and generation!

A quick google shows that the city of Santa Cruz, Calif., installed solar canopies over its two municipal parking lots, saving the city $73,000 annually while reaping the environmental benefits of the installation. The University of Colorado Boulder put up a number of these solar installations over campus parking lots and saw an immediate savings that, in addition to the environmental benefits, amounted to a full payback on its investment in a little over eight years. This kind of result should be attractive to businesses able to take advantage of subsidies and depreciate their solar investment in addition to saving on energy costs and doing the environment and future generations a favor.

The appropriate Vermont agency should be taking inventory of the state's parking spaces and setting a trend of subsidized and accelerated solar installations for the rest of the country to emulate.

Dave Brautigam

Hinesburg