Letters to the Editor (8/28/24) 

Support the Roxy

[Re "Reel Drama," August 21]: What's a city without a cinema? Let's turn off Netflix and take a stroll to Merrill's Roxy Cinemas. Look past the summer blockbusters — there are some poignant films playing.

The chairs are comfy. Bring a friend. Let's keep it alive.

Mark Kaufman

Burlington

How to Help Burlington

[Re "Reel Drama," August 21; "Downtown Dilemma," August 14]: We, the people in Burlington and surrounding towns, need to realize that we hold the purse strings! Working all together, we can have an impact.

We must recognize that our current dilemma related to downtown is a phase, not a trend.

In the meantime, go to the movies, eat out and patronize all the local shops. They need us now more than ever. And when you spend a dollar at the movies or in a local restaurant, chances are that it will be spent locally. So, your dollar becomes two.

Your money spent at local shops will support this amazing place with its great attributes and amazing stream of arts, music and entertainment. Your money spent with local businesses will ensure we have a vibrant local economy and all the pieces that make up what we call home. We have amazing social health organizations working to solve problems, and they are also supported by local dollars.

If you like everything Burlington offers, spend money at your local stores, restaurants, theaters and cafés. If you have an extra buck, contribute to one of our local social organizations.

Go to the movie theater — it's fun! Spending money locally does make a difference. It is one place where we can all work together, and together, we are mighty.

Bill Calfee

Burlington

Calfee is the founder of the online local shopping platform Myti, which sells 50,000 products from 40 Vermont stores.

We Won't 'Adapt'

[Re "Downtown Dilemma," August 14]: So Seven Days thinks it's now incumbent on law-abiding citizens to "adapt" to drug use and rampant crime in Vermont's largest city?

Like, seriously?

If anyone ever heard of woke ideology, it has to be that normal is now "adapting" to crime and drugs.

How the tide has turned.

In the old, pre-woke days, it would be the criminals who were expected to "adapt" to the law-abiding way of life.

And now, unbelievably, the newspaper of record in Vermont has adopted the "adapt-or-go-south" attitude.

Theodore Cohen

Burlington

On Look-alikes

Thanks for the quite enjoyable article about the guy who looked like Rod Stewart ["Rod Stewart Double Who Charmed Vermont Meets the Real Deal," August 9]. We're all so starstruck and celebrity conscious, I'm sure this happens fairly regularly to innocent look-alikes. No worries: Both stories were good! Although I did wonder what Rod would be doing in Vermont...

My father had similar problems. Back in the '70s and '80s in New York City, my dad was often stopped for autographs, as people insisted he was Jerry Garcia. It was at its worst when he wore overalls, but even in regular clothes people would demand his signature. And no matter how many times he told them he wasn't Jerry, they would say things like, "C'mon, Jerry, be a good guy!"

There used to be an evaluator on "Antiques Roadshow" who specialized in Jerry Garcia, and we often wondered whether he knew about the fake signatures...

Harry Goldhagen

East Fairfield

More Roundabouts, Please

[Re "Burlington Opens First Leg of Long-Delayed Champlain Parkway," August 20, online]: I've been whirling with ease through the new roundabout on Shelburne Road in Burlington. No more bottlenecks. What if we had more roundabouts, like the ones around Montpelier?

The Railyard Enterprise Project roundabout would occur south of Curtis Lumber on Pine Street, sending cars over to Battery Street on the waterfront. It's been in the works for years — steering cars away from the densely settled King and Maple neighborhood, avoiding disproportionate harm to low-income residents and people of color.

Another roundabout would be located where Pine Street ends at Queen City Park Road. The Pine Street "dead end" would have a major impact on people traveling to and from Burlington.

Last summer, I, along with a group of Queen City Park residents, stood at the corner of Pine Street and Queen City Park Road with a sign that read, "Pine Street Dead-Ends Here." We passed out flyers informing motorists about the plan to dead-end Pine in order to make way for the Champlain Parkway. The drivers said it would be a serious disruption in their lives. They asked, "What's wrong with the city?"

I'm angry that we are building a highway to "nowhere" using a plan that is decades old and has already cut down a thick green urban forest. It's as if we are living in the past rather than imagining what the future could bring, throwing sustainability out the window.

Ron Krupp

South Burlington

'Unaffordable Living'

[Re From the Publisher: "On-the-Job Training," August 21]: "That darn housing crisis," unaffordable daycare, unaffordable heating oil, unaffordable groceries, unaffordable lumber. All of this because Vermont has wages that are hard to live on. Vermont needs real, good-paying jobs from large companies, like when IBM was here. Unskilled jobs will never pay enough. It's no wonder that college students leave the state. Why would they want to live close to the poverty level in Vermont? All of this so-called "unaffordable living" is because there are not enough good-paying jobs. Senators, bring corporate America to Vermont. This will even the scales.

Ray Dauphinais

Brownington

Corrections

Last week's From the Publisher column, "On-the-Job Training," contained a few errors: Seven Days intern Leah Krason accompanied food writer Melissa Pasanen on a single reporting trip for a cover story about Vermont diners, "Order Up," that was published on July 3. Nina Sablan tagged along with reporter Mary Ann Lickteig to watch Olympic sculler Jacob Plihal, not rower Billy Bender, train in the rain. Sablan wrote her own story about Bender, "Something in the Water," with coaching help from Seven Days writer Ken Picard.