Apologies for another belated posting of this feature and the general lack of posting recently, but last week was kind of all over the place. Plumbing problems, likely mold issue, business trip out of town, blah blah, trying to catch up. Here we go!

When local coverage really matters. A couple weeks ago in this space, the lead item was a piece in The Stowe Reporter detailing the tremendous number of short-term rentals owned by non-locals. And now, reporter Aaron Calvin gets to follow up in what must have been a satisfying way: the town Planning Commission is considering limits on short-term rentals, and as Calvin writes, “the need for such a cap is generally agreed upon; the discussion centers around how best to go about implementing it.”

We can’t say for sure that the earlier story influenced the Planning Commission’s approach to short-term rentals, but the timing would suggest that it did. This is an excellent example of why good local coverage is so crucial.

The Commons continues to track the Trump damage. Last week, The Commons grabbed the lead spot in this space with a good piece about how Trump’s Big B**** Bill is likely to impact Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. For those just tuning in, the story quoted BMH’s chief exec as calling the bill “vicious” in its effect on rural hospitals. Well, reporter Joyce Martel followed up with an equally vital story about Grace Cottage Hospital, the state’s smallest hospital. Grace Cottage CEO Olivia Sweetnam was more measured than her Brattleboro counterpart, but she did say that dealing with the BBB “is going to be very difficult.”

As I wrote last week, every local outlet in the state should be covering their hospitals and other major health care facilities in the same way. (For example, I would suggest to my co-conspirators at The Hardwick Gazette that there’s a story in how the BBB will impact the Plainfield Health Center, a major provider of primary care health care for miles around.)

The Reporter goes deep. Multiple outlets covered the Essex Development Review Board’s rejection of the proposed Amazon supermax facility, but nobody gave you the in-depth, blow-by-blow, who-said-what coverage that The Essex Reporter delivered. Much of the detail won’t be of interest to the statewide audience, but local people deserve to know how their public officials handled a major local issue. They got what they needed from reporter Ella Ruehsen.

(Noteworthy: The Reporter offers audio versions of its stories, an invaluable add-on in this age of mobile listening. You can use AI to generate adequate audio without much effort, and it’s a step worth taking for all local media. Extra bonus tip: Some outlets sell a sponsorship for audio content in the form of a brief sponsor message before the story. It’s been a great success elsewhere. Think about it.)

Remember when Phil Scott used to talk about this all the damn time? Last week on her Substack, Elaine Haney (day job: ED of Emerge Vermont) asked a question that rarely gets asked. Well, by anyone besides me*, and I haven’t ever gotten to this one. Haney brings up “6-3-1,” which the governor used to invoke at every opportunity. It refers to three of Vermont’s big challenges: Every day, Vermont has six fewer workers, three fewer K-12 students, and one baby born exposed to addiction. He used to have a “6-3-1” Vermont license plate on display. But you don’t hear it much anymore.

*Receipts: Lean management, “protect the most vulnerable,” and the Agency of Digital Services.

Why? Haney suggests it’s because, after 7 1/2 years in office, Scott has made no measurable progress on any of those key metrics. Haney actually helped create one of Scott’s most vaunted initiatives: the remote worker grant program. It was “attention grabbing,” but the real-world result? “Only about 660 people ended up moving here” through the program. You know, it might be nice if one of our news outlets took stock of the promises made by Scott and whether or not he has delivered on them.

Community Access breakout star? Thanks to The St. Albans Messenger for focusing my attention on Josh Prior, programming coordinator at Northwest Access TV. Prior is the host, creator, and sole producer of “Rations,” a show that features him walking through the woods and pausing to taste-test MREs, “meals ready to eat.” You know, the food of dubious provenance that comes in pouches? It began as a way to produce some original content and let him “get out of the office,” and now it’s got a syndication deal. Pretty cool.

Link to Episode 9 on YouTube, which dropped last week. It begins with a visit to an unnamed fast-food outlet followed by a sampling of “vegetarian taco pasta, ‘meat’ that did NOT go as planned, and… one of the better desserts this season!”

Diving down this rabbit hole led me to another star turn for Prior. This time he sat down with NWATV’s Executive Director Paul Snyder for a game of “Which camera took the shot?” It was highly entertaining even though I had no idea what they were talking about most of the time. They were just having so much fun. If you need to kill eight minutes while trying to avoid work, I highly recommend. I think one of our local TV stations should think about hiring Prior as a feature reporter and just letting him cook. The results could be spectacular.