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Author: Kevin O'Connor

Kevin O’Connor is a Brattleboro-based writer and former staffer for the Sunday Rutland Herald and Times Argus.
 

What Vermont can learn from its forgotten motel voucher crisis of 2013

By Kevin O'Connor

Jun 6 2023, 6:17 AMJune 5, 2023

“It’s disheartening that you could almost use the same quotes I had from 10 years ago about what’s going on right now,” one advocate said this month while reflecting back on a continuing lack of enough shelter space. “We collectively haven’t made much progress.”


After last-ditch legal effort fails, hundreds of unhoused Vermonters are evicted from motel program

By Lola Duffort, Patrick Crowley, Kevin O'Connor, Emma Cotton and Erin Petenko

Jun 1 2023June 1, 2023

Thursday marked the first of several waves of evictions planned for this spring and summer, as the state winds down pandemic-era programs that have sheltered an estimated 80% of Vermont’s unhoused population in motels.


Brattleboro Union High School poised to 'Bear' a new nickname

By Kevin O'Connor

May 31 2023May 31, 2023

The school’s governing board is set to receive the results of a student vote to replace the “Colonel” with a new “Bear” moniker and mascot.


Troopers in beanbag case plead not guilty to charges of reckless endangerment

By Kevin O'Connor

May 30 2023May 30, 2023

The Vermont Attorney General’s Office has asked a judge to reconsider an additional count of simple assault in a 2022 incident in which police fired a projectile at a man reportedly high on drugs, screaming and holding a bloody saw atop a Newfane homeowner’s roof.


‘That’s the beauty of it’: Making a cemetery a more inclusive place

By Kevin O'Connor

May 28 2023May 30, 2023

Brattleboro’s Morningside Cemetery, touted a century ago for what was once the state’s tallest monument, is moving into the present this Memorial Day by adding “green” and Muslim burial options.


In downtown Brattleboro, crimes are fast — and the selectboard response slow

By Kevin O'Connor

May 23 2023May 23, 2023

A recent armed robbery sparked local headlines exactly a year after residents, seeing the number of burglaries nearly double from 2021 to 2022, first asked municipal leaders for security measures yet to be taken.


Brattleboro launches Emergency Housing Response Team as motel program ends

By Kevin O'Connor

May 17 2023May 17, 2023

“There are no great answers here, and we don’t truly know what to expect,” said a local leader in a town that shelters one of every 10 Vermonters who use state vouchers.


As Brattleboro studies a takeover, communities that run ambulances warn about costs

By Kevin O'Connor

May 15 2023May 17, 2023

In Vermont cities and towns with their own emergency medical services, taxpayers must subsidize as much as two-thirds of spending after insurance collection.


Brattleboro Union High to retire its ‘Colonel’ for a new student-chosen nickname

By Kevin O'Connor

May 10 2023May 10, 2023

The school’s nearly 800 ninth through 12th graders will propose and pick a new moniker this month to end decades of conflicting opinion about the Civil War symbol.


What’s in a name? Brattleboro Union High’s ‘Colonel’ sparks a Civil War of opinion.

By Kevin O'Connor

May 8 2023May 8, 2023

After years of debate, the school is poised to drop its longtime moniker, which morphed from its 1950 Union origins to a more recent “Pride of the South” Confederate mascot.


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