Editorial

A Town Meeting primer

This piece is adapted from information on the website of Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas. For more information and state government resources, visit sos.vermont.gov/elections/election-info-resources/town-meeting-local-elections.
On Town Meeting Day, the first Tuesday in...

Wilmington Town Meeting voters have a chance to cut costs while going green

On Town Meeting day, Wilmington voters will see an Australian ballot question asking them to approve a $350,000 bond to fund the installation of a solar array on top of Wilmington’s public safety building on Beaver Street.
It may seem counterintuitive, but it appears that in this case, voting...

With vision, an albatross can become an opportunity

For the last several weeks, we’ve been following upcoming school closure votes in the area, those in Marlboro and Readsboro. We’ve also been following a conversation about school reconfiguration in Wardsboro and Dover. One reason we’re so focused on the proposed school closures is that they may be...

Vermonters should show their “ubuntu”

Over the last several weeks, The Deerfield Valley News has put a Klieg light on immigration and immigration issues relevant to southern Vermont.
One of the things we’ve learned recently is that Afrikaners will be resettled in southern Vermont – including the Deerfield Valley – very soon....

Rural education not likely to see a rebound

This week we reported on the possible closure of two elementary schools in our area. Reporter Lauren Harkawik provided updated reporting on Marlboro’s agonizing decision to recommend the closure of its elementary school. It seems pretty clear from her reporting that nobody in Marlboro is happy...

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...