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.)