WSESD Should Report All Vote Totals

On the WSESD site is reported the unofficial results of the March 7 school director election. For the Brattleboro 3 Year term only the vote for Kimberly Price is reported, though Jaci Reynolds was also on the ballot. A footnote indicates that Reynolds withdrew from the race before the election, but she presumably got some votes, and those should be reported.

I got the chance to do some homework on this issue in our Guilford Selectboard contest on Town Meeting Day. One of the three candidates for the 2 year seat announced before the election that she was “withdrawing,” but her name was already on the ballot, and, in fact, in absentee voting she had even already received some votes.


Defending My Friends and Neighbors

With March 7th – election day – drawing closer, I wanted to take a moment to speak to the defamation of my friends and neighbors that has been going on.

Here are some things that have been said over the past few months by landlords:

“No landlord would evict a good tenant”

“You say they’ve been no-cause evicted but didn’t do anything wrong? Well, I’d really like to hear the other side…”

and the most offensive: “Vote No on Article II It hurts responsible tenants”.


RAD Just Cause Amendment Implies Permanent Homeless Under-class

NOTICE : This doesn’t mean anyone should move out. It only means that the compassion is misplaced.
Imagine you’re homeless, living in a car for five years, and you hear about a new law that says everyone with an apartment can keep it forever.

They say the endless lease is compassionate >> If you already HAVE a place, you’ll be able to stay your whole life if you want, regardless of a signed agreement, regardless of someone waiting to move in, regardless of homeless people waiting in the snow.


RAD Just Cause To Create Permanent Homeless Under-class

Section B of the RAD Just Cause amendment demands for tenants the privilege of an endless lease. RAD says the endless lease is compassionate. Let’s be real here. To demand the option of an endless lease while homeless people endlessly wait is not compassion, it is self-interest. To preach it as compassion shows no thought even of the existence of homeless people. Section B creates a class of priveleged landed tenants and an under-class of permanently homeless people.

Section B) “This charter provision excludes from ‘just cause’ the expiration of a rental agreement as sole grounds for termination of tenancy.”


Vote In New Selectboard Members To Mend EMS Relationships

The currently sitting Selectboard in Brattleboro has unfinished business … and it cannot be accomplished by the currently sitting members.

For there to be honest and real “transparency,” three members of the board must change.

Richard “Dick” DeGray stands out first as someone who speaks his mind and — from personal experience, I can say — as someone who will think through an issue and debate it. Dick and I may not always agree, but we will hear each other.

Franz Reichsman is the detail person, I believe, measured and thoughtful. He has the needed background in emergency medicine to do the deep dive into our present quandary with EMS.

And Peter “Fish” Case showed his insight and evenhandedness by bringing together, virtually, the chiefs of the Brattleboro Fire Department and Rescue Inc. during an episode of Vermontitude, “A Path Back.” https://youtu.be/CYi39JDY5-U


Selectboard Notes Feb 21, 2023 – Let Homeless Sleep in the Snow

BCS submitted its Statement to the board by email and in person on paper. The selectboard (health commission) declined to read any part of BCS’ STATEMENT at the hearing.   The selectboard decided to uphold the Emergency Order to shut down BCS emergency homeless shelter in RVs.  As you might note in the Statement (ask for a copy), the Order is legally defective, as BCS was not notified of our right to a hearing within five days of the Order (and for other reasons).  So, the evening’s proceedings may  be declared void.


Multi-nation Holocaust Mourning Best Be Followed By Remembering Why and How It Was Allowed to Happen

Six million European Jews and the seventy million other men, women and children didn’t die because of Adolph Hitler, they perished because the wealthy in the US and Western Europe empowered Adolph Hitler to make war!

There is simply no way an impoverished and utterly demilitarized Nazi Germany, with no air force, a tiny navy, no armored vehicles, no heavy weapons and a small army, could have on its own, built its armed forces up to the most powerful military in the world during the first six years of Hitler’s rule without the colossal and crucial investments in, and joint venturing by, top US corporations in low wage Nazi Germany – in outright evasion of the Versailles Treaty prohibition of German rearmament.


If Someone Reminded Us that King Called His Gov.”The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World”

What if someone of consequence and world attention, difficult for US monopolized and controlled media to ignore, reminded us that one year before receiving a bullet to his brain, King had made bold print headlines in newspapers worldwide reading,”KING CALLS US “GREATEST PURVEYOR OF VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD..”[1]

Would it not weaken US deep state media credibility as it tried to explain how this world shaking event in the life of Martin Luther King had not been known by millions who celebrate his birthday on a national holiday for a great civil rights leader? – the only American, so honored.


Ban On No Cause Evictions In Brattleboro Would Hurt Good Tenants

The Town of Brattleboro will vote on a ban to No Cause Evictions in a referendum on March 7, 2023. Landlords and managers of rental properties are strongly opposed to this ban.

The term “No Cause Evictions” is a bit of a misnomer. There is always a cause when a property owner or manager does not renew a lease. And these are not exactly evictions, they are non-renewal of leases at the lease terminations. Tenants are able to leave at the end of a lease, why should the owner or manager not be allowed to ask the tenant to leave?

No Cause Evictions are a tool used by property owners and managers to ensure the safe and quiet enjoyment of rental properties by all tenants. Taking a tenant to court for a “For Cause Eviction” is extremely costly ($5,000 to get started), take many months and offer no guarantee of results.


FTX Funds Helped Balint Campaign?

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday DEC. 13, 2022 charged FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried with multiple counts of fraud, money laundering & campaign finance violations.

Becca Balint, DEMOCRAT won 2022 election for US Congress House of Representatives for Vermont. Her campaign was promoted by money from FTX. Becca Balint received an indirect $1.1 million donation from a 26-year-old executive at crypto exchange FTX. 


EV Cars Will Not Reduce Use of Fossil Fuels Because Use Of Disposable Plastic

I just realized we are being fooled.

The electric vehicle car industry isn’t going to reduce global warming because the disposable plastic container industry and synthetic clothing industry plan to use more oil as the population increases and their sales plan includes feeding people with disposable plastic containers and clothing people with synthetic fabrics made from plastic fibers made from oil.


What Is An Appropriate Political Protest Poster? After “FJB” and Code Pink Vagina Hats, How Far Can We Go?

WHAT IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE TYPE OF POLITICAL PROTEST POSTER?

(1) There’s the ever growing fame of photos of President Joe Biden with “FJB”.
(2) There’s “orange man bad” photos protesting former President Donald Trump.
(3) There are the amazing poster photos of Code Pink ladies wearing Vagine Hats.

I’m Ms. Cris Ericson, candidate for U.S. Senator on your election ballot.


Recent News Combined w/ Google Research Proves Politics Just Got a Little Dirtier! Get The Mud Rag Out!

“GlobalFoundries secured $30 million in federal funding to accelerate development of chips that will allow devices to … power electric vehicles….
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt….secured the funding in the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2022.”

We pay our taxes to the I.R.S. and then the U.S. Congress (House & Senate) votes to give our tax dollars away as subsidies to corporations to make products which they will sell internationally and they will keep the profits for themselves even though we paid for their subsidies. Where is our share?


Brattleboro Fire/EMS Survey

The Brattleboro Fire Department (BFD) is currently undergoing a strategic planning process, facilitated by an independent consulting firm (AP Triton Consulting). A Sept 21 BFD press release, which you can find on the Brattleboro Town website brattleboro.org states the Department is ”developing an EMS [Emergency Medical Service] study and is seeking community input …. The deadline for submissions is Oct. 31. The Brattleboro Fire Department’s Community Survey can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/bfdcitizens”

There is a long history here that we all need to review.