weekly political column. Tim Newcomb There are two kinds of money around the Vermont Statehouse: state and federal. State money is always in short supply. Do we spend it on the University of Vermont and the state colleges, raises for underpaid workers at our mental health agencies, or public assistance for people with disabilities? Do we set it aside for retiree pensions and health care? A dollar devoted to one of those worthy causes is a dollar less for the others. The decisions are difficult. Federal dollars, on the other hand, seem a lot easier to spend. When more than a billion of them flow into Vermont to help the state weather the COVID-19 crisis and a second billion-dollar bundle shows up less than a year later, there s a temptation to start dancing to the 1998 Squirrel Nut Zippers tune The Suits Are Picking Up The Bill.
STOWE, Vt. – Bob Poole noticed the traffic first.
Poole and his wife bought a house on Stowe s Bull Moose Ridge Road in 2014 because of the solitude. Poole, a former executive editor of National Geographic magazine, spent four decades working in the Washington, D.C., area. Vermont was his Nirvana. My wife and I both loved it here, Poole said. We started looking around. We found this place and made plans to sell everything in Virginia and move here. The big attraction was the quiet.
One example: Every spring the woodcocks would put on a dramatic show of mating rituals just across the narrow dirt road from Poole s home. On a busy day, three or four cars might pass by. There are only nine houses on the private road, marked by a custom wooden sign.
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