Opinion · July 9, 2026August 11: vote like our kids' education depends on itThere will be a district-wide ballot question on August 11 — a vote on who gets to participate in decisions about our schools. This is a question about whether we will fulfill our obligation to our district's students and make use of every option available to us.By Matt RkiouakGazette Report · July 4, 2026Cutting the medicine, not the managementUVM Medical Center is losing about $460,000 a day, and the health network's answer is to lay off staff, order its doctors to see more patients an hour, and strip weight-loss drugs from its own employees' insurance. None of those moves touches the two cost drivers Vermont's hospital regulator — and the consultant the network itself helped pay for — have identified in writing: a top-heavy administration, and a decade of Vermont premium-payers subsidizing money-losing hospitals across the lake in New York.By Matt RkiouakGazette Report · July 4, 2026Save before you spend: a capital-funding strategy for MiddlesexMiddlesex borrows at nearly 6 percent for equipment that neighboring towns buy outright. A disciplined shift toward pre-funding would cut the town's interest bill, replace tax spikes with a level annual line, and rebuild the emergency reserves the 2023–24 floods washed away. The evidence from twenty comparable Vermont towns — and from the profession's own standard-setters — says it is affordable, and that the town is already halfway there.By Matt RkiouakEditorial · June 21, 2026South Bear Swamp Road: a reclassification in search of a reasonBefore the Selectboard upgrades a third of a mile of Class 4 road, it owes the town a clear answer to a simple question — what makes this stretch unique?The Editorial Board