Editor:

Senator James Jeffords is retired, ill, and in his declining years. The decision of the board to turn down the naming of a bridge in Senator Jeffords’ honor is small-minded and petty.

The board’s motivation in snubbing Jeffords is that near the end of his service in the U.S. Senate, he left the Republican party. He didn’t. The Republican party left him.

Insiders in both Washington and Vermont are well aware Jeffords was told a bold-faced lie by the Bush White House that assured him at the highest levels that the level of appropriation he had worked for in special education was in the budget.

But it was not.

For Jeffords, a native Vermonter and a man of principle, this was the last straw and he declared himself an Independent.

Jeffords worked hard to get the money for Barre Town. I’m sure that 250 other Vermont communities would have like to receive the money, and would gladly thank him for it.

I ask the board to reconsider this decision.

Thomas C. Davis

Barre