A few events over the last week drove home the point that the Burlington area really is a small region that plays big. We are the 5’10” NBA player that competes in a 6’10” game. Here are a few examples: the Quad events brought in some of the biggest national and international performers for a two-week festival of song, music, dance and theatre; the CVE is hosting Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Bob Dylan followed by Kid Rock; the LCI Derby drew 5500 anglers to the shores of Lake Champlain; and, we still host a major league baseball team. There are a ton more examples but you get my point. There is no way a city of forty thousand should ‘play this big’---but we do.

My belief is that once we attain this level we can ill afford to slide back to ‘B’ class status. These types of events draw tourists, businesses and the curious onlookers to the region as much as the lake and mountains do. If we begin to lose the very fabric of our DNA, the things that differentiate us from other towns of more than thirty thousand with pretty scenery, we will become just another region whose time has passed.

Which leads me to my biggest gripe: how the heck can we afford to let the Lake Monsters leave due to a sub-standard park? While this is clearly not ‘value-added’ business in the traditional sense it is a much a part of whom we are as the myth of Champ. There were real efforts made to save the team and their owner should be congratulated for bending over backwards to make it work. It’s is time for others to step up to the plate and keep a quintessential part of our region in tact.