Editorial

Cost of water system may be a shock, but will never be cheaper than today

Only a handful of Dover residents attended a public informational meeting held by the Dover Municipal Water Task Force last week – in fact, only three of those in attendance weren’t Dover town officials. Three!
Those three Dover residents, and perhaps some of our readers this week, were in...

Support democracy close to home

It’s no secret that democracy has been on the decline around the world for at least the last decade. According to a 2025 report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, more countries have seen a decline in democratic performance than have seen improvements over the...

Why do humans, almost universally, find violent crime fascinating?

This week’s edition of The Deerfield Valley News includes an update of a criminal case in which a Whitingham man killed a 75-year-old man who was his housemate and boyfriend. The original story is also recapped in our 2025 Year in Review this week. The descriptions of the murder and the...

“A powerful backlash against overreach”

This week The Deerfield Valley News spoke with Wilmer Chavarria, a Vermont resident who is suing federal agencies and officials after he was bullied into giving US Customs and Border Patrol agents access to his electronic devices, including a school district laptop that contained confidential...

Names withheld

This week we had to do something that, generally speaking, we’d rather not have to do: we made the decision to withhold the names of sources interviewed for an article.
Many readers will have noticed that we have been taking a closer look at immigration issues in southern Vermont recently...

Farewell, and thank you, to Randy and Vicki

This was a bittersweet week for us here at The Deerfield Valley News. On Wednesday, we said our official goodbyes to Randy and Vicki Capitani on their last day with the newspaper they built over the last three and a half decades.
Most of our readers probably already know, but for those who...

Marlboro is not alone in its dwindling student population

Last week we reported on the Marlboro School Board’s heart-wrenching decision to put the future of their school to a public vote. It looks like there will be no good choice on the ballot. Their options include maintaining their second through eighth grades for 40 students at a cost that would add...

Some Vermonters pushed into hunger crisis

Last week The Deerfield Valley News published two stories on food insecurity in southern Vermont. As with numerous recent press reports on food insecurity in Vermont, much of the focus was on the government shutdown, its impact on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits – known...

Study consolidation or risk another injustice

In last week’s issue, we looked at the Vermont School Redistricting Task Force’s surprise recommendation for a system of regional cooperative education services, voluntary mergers, and regional high schools.
The recommendation was an act of rebellion – a rejection of Act 73, passed by the...

Winning, with experience

Two Saturdays ago, on November 1, the Twin Valley Wildcats won the Vermont Principals’ Association Division 4 boys’ varsity state soccer championship under the lights at Rutland High School. The game results were wonderfully chronicled in last week’s edition by sportswriter Brandon Canevari and...