If any of you have ever baked bread, you know that you are only supposed to knead the dough for so long before it starts to impact the quality of the final product. Some things aren’t meant to be touched, if at all.  Related to this is the old Vermont proverb, “if it ain’t broke,

The last post had to do with conflicts of interest. This is a follow-up to that but a little but more subtle. There are really three different types of conflicts of interest. Legal conflicts that are clearly defined by ordinance, policy, rule, statute or otherwise. Ethical conflicts, for which there may be no law against,

Right now the Burlington City Council is deciding whether it should sell Burlington’s homegrown telecom to either an experienced and highly-regarded Canadian corporation (which has offered $30.5 million) or a well-intentioned, but inexperienced and underfunded local group (which has offered $12 million). My VPR Commentary on the merits of the proceedings, can be found here