Vermont must give teeth to the open records law

Posted on August 9, 2010 |

• Editorial

By Tom Kearney

Vermont, like the United States, has a government of laws, not of men — what Abraham Lincoln called “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

It’s an ancient idea, one that dates back at least to the time of Aristotle and Plato, more than 300 years before Christ. It was a keystone of the American Revolution. In Britain, the king was the law, but Thomas Paine wrote that, “in America, the law is king.”

Maybe Armando Vilaseca and the municipal officials of Hartford, Vt., should brush up on the principles of democracy.

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