Well hey, not one but TWO of our local newspapers landed a pair of entries each in this week’s news roundup. Some serious stuff, some not so serious, a healthy serving of meat and potatoes. Kind of a well-rounded buffet.

Turns out, short-term rental registries are good for something. The Legislature has tried and failed to enact a registry of short-term rentals, mostly due to opposition from, you will be shocked to hear, the short-term rental industry itself. But the town of Stowe enacted a registry of its own, perhaps because there are roughly 1,000 short-term rental properties in a town of 5,000. Seems like a lot.

Reporters Aaron Calvin and Patrick Bilow of The Stowe Reporter used the registry as a research tool. Their story reveals that the vast majority of Stowe’s short-term rental properties are owned by people who don’t live in town — and more than half are owned by out-of-staters. The story is sure to feed into an ongoing discussion of short-term rentals as part of a broader examination of housing issues in the resort community.

“Internal wrangling” continues to plague southern Vermont school board. The eye-rolling continues for Shawn Cunningham of The Chester Telegraph, whose duties include covering the Green Mountain Union School Board. It has been a great source of unintentional humor of late, or tragedy if you prefer your governmental bodies to serve the interests of the people. The Board is deeply divided on appointing a new trustee to fill a vacancy. If you read between the lines, it seems obvious that there’s a partisan divide on the putatively nonpartisan board. The apparent conservatives are throwing out all kinds of entertaining objections to a nominee who seems to be of the liberal persuasion. The result is a lot of wasted time, and a portion of the district that doesn’t enjoy its full measure of representation.

The Shelburne Police, an educational institution. The Other Paper’s Briana Brady reports that when you get pulled over by the cops in Shelburne, you’ll probably get off with a warning — even if you exceed the speed limit by as much as 30 miles per hour. Overall, in the last year and a half, Shelburne’s Finest wrote 61 traffic tickets and issued 669 warnings. The surprising thing, according to Brady, is that Shelburne’s warning rates are fairly typical of Vermont police as a whole. I did not know that.

There’s one set of figures that seems completely out of whack. The Shelburne police made 25 stops for going 1-10 mph over the limit and wrote 10 tickets. They stopped 85 drivers for going 21-30 mph over the limit — and wrote only nine tickets. The police explain the preference for warnings as an educational effort, a way to get people to change their driving habits. I would submit that anyone exceeding the limit by 30 mph might need a stronger dose of medicine. And those going a mere five over should qualify for the kid-glove treatment.

The Waterbury Roundabout scores twice. The first entry isn’t anything dramatic, but it’s a prime example of service journalism you’ll only get from your local outlet. In advance of a weekend with multiple community events, The Roundabout published a story listing road closures related to the events. It’d be possible for town residents to get the information elsewhere, but only a local news outlet will put it all together for you.

The Roundabout also published a piece about the death of a once-famous local resident, Murphy the dog. Back in 2014, Murphy ran away from the scene of a car crash and remained on the loose for 559 days, including “one of the coldest winters on record.” It’s a marvelous story told by former Associated Press reporter Wilson Ring, who was himself involved in the efforts to return Murphy to his family. Murphy died in early June, having got to enjoy many years of domestic bliss.

Likewise, two from The Montpelier Bridge. Bad news on the capital city housing front: a proposed 31-unit development, three years in the planning, has been put on hold “due to rising costs and the current economic uncertainty,” according to one of the developers. But the final blow was a failure to secure infrastructure support from the city of Montpelier. The Bridge’s chief cook and bottle-washer Cassandra Hemenway reports that City Council canceled a planned vote on the measure in January due to fears of exposure to possible financial losses. It’s a change from the usual “NIMBY strikes again” story, but it underlines some of the difficulties we face in addressing our housing shortage.

And from the feature section, The Bridge brings us a really nice profile by Tom McKone of legendary author Katherine Paterson, still alive and kicking in Montpelier. Paterson has won every award a children’s writer can win, and her top seller, “Bridge to Terabithia,” is one of the all-timers. (And is about to get a special 50th anniversary edition in 2017.) Paterson talks about how her Christian faith has fed into her writing, and what it’s like to be targeted by “all my Christian brothers and sisters” in the book-banning cohort. “The problem is that they think what I should be doing is writing propaganda, and not a story.”

The profound backstory behind a Montpelier retailer. Back in Montpelier but not The Bridge this time. Bel Morsheimer of the UVM Community News Service, on assignment for Vermont Public, pays a visit to Magpie & Tiger, one of the newer stores in the capital city. Owner Elena Gustavson told Morsheimer that the inspiration for her store was her Korean immigrant mother who was “essentially illiterate.” As a child, Gustavson served as her mother’s scribe, a duty that inspired a lifelong love of writing. She’s now sharing that love with her customers. And yeah, selling some top-shelf pens and paper.

His yard is his canvas. Finally, we turn to ol’ reliable Eva Sollberger of Seven Days’ “Stuck in Vermont” video series. Her latest installment chronicles a visit to the home of Clarence Baker, who has turned his Roxbury yard into a garden adorned with handmade sculptures featuring found objects — what others might think of as “junk.” I infer that Sollberger had to work a little hard to craft a compelling video because Baker isn’t the most articulate person. Which doesn’t matter in the least, because the quirky beauty of his surroundings is all the voice he needs. I do hope there’s a succession plan in place for the Baker manse.