BRATTLEBORO-I support Isaac Evans-Frantz, who is running for the Brattleboro Selectboard in March.
He recently helped work successfully with Brattleboro voters to get the Selectboard's code-of-conduct ordinance rescinded. He believes that it's essential to be investing in housing, public transit, and social services to address root causes of crime.
And while he supports law enforcement efforts against large-scale drug dealing, he believes that people struggling with addiction should be treated for this, not punished.
I completely agree and feel it is imperative that our local leaders do much more than pass ordinances that essentially punish those living in higher-crime areas for calling 911 or the police, even when someone is the victim of a crime.
As a senior citizen, and like many seniors in our area, I am fearful that Trump and his cronies will do away with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security - an "easy" way to find the $2 trillion that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to eliminate from the federal budget are tasked at the proposed Department of Government Efficiency.
I'm ordinarily quite interested in national politics, but if these vast and popular programs come to an end, either in a single swoop or from a lingering death to privatization, we will need to rely on local sources of assistance and local government.
I, for one, will vote for Isaac, in his mere 40s, because I believe he has the ideas, energy, and enthusiasm that will be needed to face whatever is to come our way.
Phoebe Sparrow Wagner
Brattleboro
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