On Tuesday, the Village of Essex Junction Board of Trustees will consider proposed changes to its land development code that would make it more difficult to open massage parlors that allow criminal activities on their premises. The measure, introduced by village trustee Elaine Sopchak, comes in response to revelations last year by Seven Days that at least three Chittenden County massage parlors, including the now-defunct Seiwa Spa in Essex Junction (seen right in a May 2013 photo), were allegedly offering sex for money, possibly by female workers who were the victims of human trafficking.
The proposal, scheduled for discussion at the board's February 11 meeting, would create a new section of the village's land development code that specifically targets massage establishments. According to Sopchak, the new code would define what constitutes a massage parlor and would require a public hearing before one may open, as well as routine inspections and an annually renewable business permit.
The new code would also place physical restrictions on such businesses, such as prohibiting sleeping quarters on the premises, banning locks on massage room doors and not allowing customers to enter and exit from the rear of the building. Sopchak, who's been working closely on the new code with Essex Police Chief Brad LaRose, said that many of the proposed changes are borrowed from a model ordinances developed by the Polaris Project, an international anti-human-trafficking group based in Washington, D.C.
Sopchak said she doesn't expect the board to vote on the new land-use rules at Tuesday night's meeting, as there will likely be amendments and additions suggested.
At the board's January 28 meeting,Village president George Tyler said that for some time now, the village has been looking for ways to keep out massage parlors of "questionable repute" because "this isn't the first time this has happened here."
In July 2004, following months of police surveillance and undercover investigation, Essex Police, along with agents from the FBI and U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, raided the Tokyo Spa in Essex Junction and two other "health clubs" suspected of prostitution and money laundering. In all, eight Asian women were taken into custody, including three who admitted to performing sex acts for money. However, no prosecutions were ever secured, as all of the witnesses later disappeared before the case could be put together. Only later did police conclude that their "suspects" were most likely trafficking victims themselves.
Seiwa Spa, one of four Asian massage businesses that closed in June 2012, following the Seven Days exposé, was located directly across the street from the old Tokyo Spa location. There are no similar businesses operating in the village now.
Essex Junction's new land use code is just one of several efforts now underway across the state to crack down on unscrupulous massage businesses. Last month, Rep. Tim Jerman (D-Essex Junction) introduced legislation to license massage therapists. Jerman, who also attended the January 28 trustees' meeting, noted that his bill faces considerable opposition from legitimate massage therapists, many of whom are opposed to new fees and educational mandates. Similar efforts to license massage therapists have failed in the past, in part because they were opposed by the Secretatry of State's Office of Professional Regulation.
Sopchak said, "Licensure is a great tool, but it’s only one of several tools … Chief LaRose wants more.” Notably, she said, creating a local ordinance or zoning restriction is one more way to get police “in the door” of these businesses and root out the unscrupulous ones.
Also in the works in the legislature are efforts to amend Vermont's prostitution law, which dates back to the 1920s and defines the act as exchanging money for "intercourse." Under that narrow definition, many of the sex acts being offered by Chittenden County massage parlors (namely "happy ending" hand jobs) were not technically "prostitution" but fell under the lesser charge of "prohibited acts."
2013 file photo by Ken Picard.
Gov. Peter Shumlin made his Sunday morning talk show debut this weekend with an appearance on ABC's "This Week."
The topic? You guessed it: Vermont's "full-blown heroin crisis."
Shumlin appeared with guest host Martha Raddatz, ABC News correspondent Dr. Richard Besser and journalist Seth Mnookin, who wrote last week in Slate about his own struggle with heroin addiction. The segment segued from actor Philip Seymour Hoffman's death by heroin overdose last week to Shumlin's State of the State address, in which he focused on Vermont's "growing epidemic" of opiate abuse.
Each weekday, Seven Days scans the news across the Vermont media landscape to find the smartest, best and most compelling stories. We bundle them up in an email and send them out to our subscribers early each afternoon. It's called the Daily 7.
So which Vermont news stories are you reading? And which should you be reading? Here are the stories you clicked on most from this week's editions of the Daily 7:
Disharmony on Prospect Street: A Dispute Between Neighbors Strikes a Sour Note
By Alicia Freese, Seven Days — Wednesday, February 5
A feud between neighbors over a Burlington man's home guitar workshop has gone on for a year and a half and could reach the Vermont Supreme Court.
Potent Synthetic Being Sold as Heroin Causes Three Vermont Deaths
By Taylor Dobbs, Vermont Public Radio — Thursday, February 6
The Department of Health says three people in Addison County died after overdosing on what they thought was heroin but was actually the prescription painkiller Fentanyl.
Mayor: $10.5 Million Burlington Telecom Lawsuit Settlement on the Table
By Mike Donoghue, Burlington Free Press — Monday, February 3
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger says the city has settled Citibank's $33.5 million lawsuit against the city over Burlington Telecom for $10.5 million.
Burlington Telecom Deal Could Be Big Win for Weinberger — and for Taxpayers?
By Kevin J. Kelley, Seven Days Off Message — Tuesday, February 4
The settlement Mayor Miro Weinberger reached with Citibank pays off Burlington Telecom's debt, but it doesn't reimburse the $16.9 million in city money the utility improperly spent. BT will also likely gain a new majority owner.
Milton Residents Angry About Costs of Receiving Mail
By Charles Eichacker, Seven Days Off Message — Monday, February 3
Some Milton residents say they're frequently having to pay extra to receive mail from their town's post office.
Coke to Pay $1.25 Billion for Share of Green Mountain Coffee as Part of Long-Term Partnership
By Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine — Wednesday, February 5
Coca-Cola is purchasing 10 percent of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Analysts say the companies' collaboration on the Keurig Cold system is likely a response to the popularity of at-home SodaStream machines.
Doubling Down on Obamacare in Vermont
By Lynnley Browning, Newsweek — Thursday, February 6
Newsweek has a detailed look behind the scenes at Vermont Health Connect's troubled rollout. "People weren't technologically sophisticated enough to understand what was actually going on," said one source. UPDATE: Department of Vermont Health Access Commissioner Mark Larson says the Newsweek story is inaccurate and "inflammatory."
Gov. Peter Shumlin said Friday that while in Las Vegas this week, he "made a couple of fundraising visits" to potential donors to the Democratic Governors Association. But he would not say whether he raised any gold for his own reelection campaign while on his trip to the Silver State.
Shumlin traveled to Vegas on Wednesday to attend the National Association of Home Builders' annual meeting and trade show, at which the gov said he "spoke with the home builders about jobs and the work we're doing in Vermont to try to boost housing." The two-day trip was paid for by the DGA, a partisan electoral organization of which he is chairman.
As Seven Days reported this week, the organization's nonprofit advocacy arm and its super PAC raised $28 million last year. Most of that came from five- and six-figure contributions from special interest groups, including labor unions and the pharmaceutical, insurance, telecom and tech industries.
Neither the DGA nor the governor's office responded to questions posed by Seven Days over the past week about whether Shumlin would be taking part in any fundraising activities while out-of-state. But Shumlin confirmed at a Friday press conference at Burlington's Community Health Center that he had.
"I made a couple of fundraising visits while I was in Vegas with the DGA — on behalf of the DGA — to individuals," he said.
Asked what he meant by "fundraising visits," the gov said, "Met with individuals about the possibility of donating to the DGA, individual donors."
Shumlin said he would not comment on whom he met with, referring questions to the DGA. Asked whether the DGA would respond to such questions, Shumlin said, "That's up to the DGA."
"You run the DGA, though, right?" Seven Days noted. "I mean, they have just not responded to any of my questions about this. So, as chairman of the DGA—"
"Well, Paul, Paul, we know that you have a difficult relationship with the DGA," Shumlin responded. "And you'll have to work that out with the DGA."
Asked by WCAX news director Anson Tebbetts whether he had raised money for his own reelection campaign in Vegas, the governor was more circumspect.
"In terms of my own fundraising, any fundraising that I do will be reflected in a report that I'll file in accordance with the law," he said. "I'm really focused on my job as governor."
Asked if that meant he had not picked up any cash in Vegas for his reelection campaign, Shumlin said, "No. It means that any fundraising I do on behalf of my campaign will be reflected in my finance — in my report — when I file." That report is due March 15.
"But if you'll tell us the fundraising that you did for the DGA — or that there was fundraising with the DGA — why wouldn't you do the same for your own campaign?" Seven Days asked.
"I just answered the question, Paul," he said.
Shumlin told Seven Days in December that he planned to run for reelection this November, but neither he nor his staff has been willing to address the matter since. At the end of the year, then-deputy commissioner of labor Erika Wolffing left state government to become a fundraising consultant for the DGA and Shumlin's reelection campaign.
According to a report the DGA filed with the IRS last week outlining its fundraising and spending during the second half of 2013, the organization reimbursed Wolffing $804 for "Event Travel Lodging" on July 31, while she was still employed by state government. Wolffing and Shumlin chief of staff Liz Miller also attended a DGA retreat held in Manchester in September.
Neither the governor's office nor the DGA responded to questions about the nature of the reimbursement.
Among the businesses that contributed to the DGA last year was CGI Technologies and Solutions, which built Vermont's troubled health insurance exchange. CGI donated $110,000 to the DGA in 2013, including four separate donations in December.
But Shumlin said Friday that he never discussed DGA matters with the state contractor.
"I have not ever spoken to CGI about anything to do with the DGA," he said. "You'd have to talk to the DGA about who spoke with them. Or who deals with them. I don't."
Updated below with comment from Department of Vermont Health Access Commissioner Mark Larson, who says the Newsweek story is inaccurate and "inflammatory."
How bungled was the rollout of Vermont Health Connect, the state's trouble-plagued health insurance exchange?
In a word, argues veteran reporter and New York Times alum Lynnley Browning, very. But Browning takes a full 3,400 words to make that point in a brutal new story published on Newsweek's website Thursday evening.
In it, Browning writes that Vermont state officials "glossed over ominous warning signs and Keystone Cops-like planning" as they worked with contractor CGI Federal to build the federally mandated exchange.
The toughest part of Browning's story is her description of a demonstration CGI and state officials held in July to showcase the site's progress. While billed as a preview of the site's "live interface with the Federal Data Hub," the presentation was actually a series of "static, premade screens," Browning writes. That, apparently, was not evident to "some state officials" who thought it showed "live' registrations and enrollments by hypothetical consumers."
"People weren't technologically sophisticated enough to understand what was actually going on," Browning quotes an anonymous source — described as "a person familiar with the event who declined to be named" — as saying.
Browning goes on:
CGI Federal managers did their best to pump up their audience. The day before the event, July 25, 2013, [CGI Federal vice president of state solutions Melissa] Boudreault sent an email to two Vermont health officials titled "Proposed Talking Points," saying that "Systems looks [sic] good — it's pretty exciting to actually interface with the HUB" — i.e. HealthCare.gov — "and Benaissance" — the processor for online payments for premiums that CGI Federal hired as a subcontractor — "and see something in return!"
That email, obtained by Newsweek, appears to contradict two key assertions made by CGI Federal in the PowerPoint slides for the demonstration. Those slides said that the demonstration would show only "payment processing screens" — premade "dummy" pages — and not actual payments being processed for a hypothetical consumer. "No payment integration," one slide said.
Asked what the demonstration actually showed, [Department of Vermont Health Access Commissioner Mark] Larson told Newsweek in an email that "it is my recollection that the demonstration involved sending and receiving information with the federal data hub and showed the eligibility determination of a hypothetical customer." He declined to answer additional questions about the demonstration.
The source familiar with the event says "the system was in no way operable" during that demonstration.
To read the full story, click here.
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Updated at 6:30 p.m.:
In an interview Friday afternoon, Commissioner Larson said Browning’s story is riddled with inaccuracies and “raises inflammatory speculation, but without any basis in reality.”
“I think that it’s an unfortunate story that… doesn’t provide anything new to the discussion about Vermont Health Connect, except for inflammatory speculation,” he said. “It makes for an interesting story, but I’m not sure it’s an accurate story.”
Larson took particular exception to Browning’s suggestion that CGI misled state officials during the July demonstration. While Browning quoted an anonymous source as saying that “the system was in no way operable” at the time, Larson said he believes the company was, in fact, presenting “a real demonstration of our connection to the federal data hub.”
“It is my understanding from that event that we successfully sent information and got confirmation back from the federal data hub during that demonstration,” he said. “And I’ve never seen any information that contradicted that. Other than individual statements to the contrary, there has been nothing to indicate that that is not true.”
In rebutting the story, Larson alluded several times to “this persistent issue raised by a few people about the connection to the federal data hub.” Asked to whom he was referring, Larson answered Vermonters for Health Care Freedom founder Darcie Johnston and 2012 Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock. Johnston served as Brock’s de facto campaign manager when he challenged Larson’s boss, Gov. Peter Shumlin, two years ago.
“I think that Darcie Johnston and Randy Brock have been consistent about raising this connection about the federal data hub, and that is a very important component of the entire speculation of the Newsweek article,” Larson said.
Larson also took issue with the manner in which Browning reported her story. He said that as he answered her questions via email over the last week, he had no inkling of her central charge.
“None of the questions gave an opportunity to respond to the accusation of the story,” he said. “There was never a question like, ‘Do you feel like the demonstration on [July] 26th was faked?’ She asked what the demonstration was about. I answered that question and confirmed that the connection to the federal data hub was a real demonstration. But I never had a sense of what story she was putting together.”
Larson said his office was in the process of “preparing a list of what we think are inaccuracies in the story,” which he said he planned to provide Newsweek.
“I don’t know that we’ll highlight each and every [error], but we’ll certainly want to highlight where we think the most substantial errors remain,” he said.
It was only a drill. Five Vermont state troopers were moving through Burlington Town Center on Thursday evening, when suddenly, they came under fire. Four journalists had infiltrated the deserted mall and wouldn't stop shooting at them.
Click. Click. Click.
Undettered by the paparazzi's cameras, the troopers went on with their demonstration, proceeding from the mall's Bank Street entrance in a diamond formation, making their way down to the J. Crew store with guns drawn, turning around and exiting the way they came.
"I'm a little worried," Lt. Michael Manley, commander of the tactical team, said when they had left the building. "Is this placed locked up? The last thing I want is some old lady coming around the corner and seeing five guys with guns."
Their guns weren't loaded, and Travis Ploof, director of mall security, assured Manley that the only people still around — aside from the press corps — were janitorial staff members who had been alerted to the drills taking place that evening.
An hour earlier, the tactical unit had been at Charlotte Central School. There, Captain Timothy Clouatre explained in an interview, police negotiators had practiced what to do in the event a school is locked down. Now in the Burlington mall, they were focusing on how to handle a shooting scenario.
A negotiating team had set up a command center next to the mall's escalators, where they were joined by several members of the Burlington police department.
This evening of training wasn't prompted by any particular event, but rather the simple availability of the space, according to Clouatre. "It's utilizing a real mall, which is a wide, open space," he said. "Sometimes we get to use a bus or a train, but it's not often we get to use a mall or a school."
Who donated the most money to State Treasurer Beth Pearce's first bid for public office in 2012? Which Vermont politicians took campaign cash from tobacco giant Philip Morris during the last election cycle? How much money did renewable energy entrepreneur David Blittersdorf pump into Vermont politics in 2012?
Before this week, those questions were pretty tough to answer.*
To arrive at the first, you'd have to sift through seven PDFs (from seven reporting deadlines) of often handwritten disclosure forms, some as much as 12 pages long. To answer the second, you'd have to do the same as the first for each of the 205 candidates who reported fundraising activities last election. And to answer the third, you'd have to do the same as the second, but you'd also have to keep an eye out for all the entities through which Blittersdorf makes campaign contributions.
Now you don't. And that's thanks to nonprofit news organization VTDigger — not the state of Vermont.
On Monday, Digger launched Vermont's first fully searchable, sortable collection of campaign finance data. It's a work in progress — Digger plans to add more functionality and more data in the coming months — but it's already a tremendous improvement over the status quo, which could charitably be called archaic.
According to Anne Galloway, Digger's founder and editor, the endeavor cost roughly $30,000 and took nearly a year to complete. With funding from the Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Galloway hired data and web gurus and tasked summer interns with scrubbing numbers provided by followthemoney.org.
Was all that effort worth it? I mean, who on earth is Digger's audience for a gizmo like this?
"That's a good question. You!" Galloway jokes. "No, I hope that people outside the 'golden bubble' use it, because I really want people to understand the connection between money and politics."
Galloway acknowledges that surfing the system "is sort of like solitaire for political geeks." But its intuitive design was intended to make it easier for average Vermonters to figure out who's financing the state's political class.
"We wanted ours to be easy for everyone to use," she says.
That's huge. The existing system — if you can call it that — is so byzantine that even reporters paid to ferret out campaign finance trends struggle to do so. Many don't even bother trying.
In a piece she wrote unveiling the system, Galloway recounted her difficulties trying to get a sense of the fundraising landscape during the 2010 gubernatorial race. We've all got stories like that. When I wrote a piece about Vermont's use of the federal EB-5 investor visa program in April 2012, I found it virtually impossible to figure out how much money those who make use of the program have given to the politicians who support it. To get a full accounting, you'd have to read through hundreds, if not thousands, of documents.
Now anyone hoping to figure out how much Candidate X got from Donor Y can do so in a snap. And that's awesome.
One obvious question is why it took a scrappy little nonprofit to get the job done. Why hasn't the secretary of state's office taken care of this, as in most states?
"Part of it was the legislature was reluctant to spend the money to do it," explains Secretary of State Jim Condos.
Following last month's passage of a comprehensive campaign finance bill, Condos' office signed a $2.8 million contract last week to build a suite of new systems tracking campaign finance, lobbyists, voter checklists and absentee ballots. Seventy percent of the cost will come from the federal government and 30 percent from fees to Condos' office.
Condos says he hopes to have a preliminary version of the state's new campaign finance system online by July, but candidates won't be required to use it until next year.
Is he miffed that Digger beat him to the punch? Not at all.
"I think what Digger has done is a good thing because it's certainly going to be more immediate, and any additional exposure we have on campaign finance is a good thing for the public," he says.
There's much more work to be done.
Galloway hopes to add new components to Digger's system to track who's giving to political action committees and what they and other groups spend on last-minute electoral advertising. She also has ambitions to track the money raised by the state's congressional delegation and political parties. And, if possible, Galloway hopes to go back in time and add data from previous election cycles.
It won't be cheap. Galloway says a $10,000 grant she recently received from the Lintilhac Foundation will get her part of the way, but she'll have to pass around the hat to get the job done.
Here's hoping she's successful.
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* Looking for those answers?
Treasurer Pearce's biggest donor was the Vermont Political Awareness Committee, a PAC run by the Vermont State Employees Association. The PAC donated $5,000 to her campaign.
In 2011 and 2012, Philip Morris gave money to Gov. Peter Shumlin ($2,000); Lt. Gov. Phil Scott and state auditor candidate Vince Illuzzi ($1,000); state treasurer candidate Wendy Wilton ($500); Senate candidate Dustin Degree ($250); senators and Senate candidates Joe Benning, John Campbell, Bill Carris, Robert Lewis, Norm McAllister ($200); and House Minority Leader Don Turner ($100).
Blittersdorf personally donated $12,650 to 19 candidates. He contributed another $14,000 through the following entities: AllEarth Services, Chittenden County Solar Partners, Georgia Mountain Community Wind and Green Acres Solar Partners.
Dondre Chisom turned state's witness last year and testified for Vermont prosecutors against a friend from New York City with whom he had sold heroin and cocaine in Barre.
As part of the arrangement, Chisom saw his potential 60-month prison sentence cut in half. But that assistance, Chisom later told officials, came with a price: He and his family were threatened back in New York City after word got around that he had cut a deal with prosecutors and testified against Kevin Harris during a trial last year.
So when it came time last week for Chisom, 20, to testify once again during Harris' sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Burlington, Chisom defied Judge William Sessions III and refused to take the stand. His refusal did not seem to affect the sentencing; Harris was sent away for more than 12 years. But a few days later, Sessions grappled with what to do with Chisom.
It was a bit of a legal conundrum.
Chisom's agreement with prosecutors was finalized, and he was already serving prison time for his charges; prosecutors couldn't undo the deal. And the most common way to deal with uncooperative witnesses — filing a charge of civil contempt — was off the table because the Harris case had been resolved.
Moreover, Chisom was adamant that he had gone back on his agreement reluctantly.
"I would like to apologize to the court for what I did," Chisom said during the hearing on Tuesday. "It was very hard for me to testify again because I'm getting threats against me and my family. I had a choice to make. I knew it was very disrespectful but I wanted to make that choice because my family is in jeopardy. I accept a fair punishment for what I did. I know it was wrong."
Although a civil contempt charge was no longer an option, federal law allows a judge to impose a sentence of up to six months for criminal contempt of court without holding a trial.
Assistant United States Attorney Craig Nolan asked Sessions to impose the entire six months, saying prosecutors may have erred in signing off on the deal with Chisom before the Harris case had ended. Had they waited, Nolan said, they would have scrapped the entire arrangement when he refused to testify at Harris' sentencing, or filed new drug or gun charges against Chisom.
"Perhaps the government made a mistake in moving on the offer and not waiting until sentencing, so shame on the government for trusting Mr. Chisom," Nolan said. "What he did was essentially obstruct justice. Six months is a very small consequence."
According to court records, Chisom, Harris and another man brought crack cocaine and heroin from New York City to Barre and began selling it out of a local woman's apartment in August and September of 2011. The Vermont Drug Task Force rolled up the operation when undercover agents bought drugs from the men. Police seized 11 grams of heroin, 28 grams of crack cocaine, a revolver and several thousands of dollars in cash from the apartment.
Chisom's attorney asked Sessions to add only an additional two months.
"We feel like six months would be an excessive punishment for his actions," said defense attorney Robert Sussman. "He was between a rock and a hard place: 'Either, I testify again and possibly incur the wrath of those people, or I risk incurring the wrath of the court.'"
Harris, moreover, had threatened another witness in the case, telling him, "I will let everyone know you are a rat for what you are doing," Harris had said, according to Sussman.
At the end of the hearing on Tuesday, Sessions said he agreed with Nolan, and tacked on another six months to Chisom's current prison sentence.
"Even though he felt it make have been for legitimate reasons, there has to be consequences for that," Sessions said. "When a federal judge orders somsone to testify, and they have no 5th Amendment right not to testify, and that individual refuses, that really strikes at the heart of the judicial system ... that conduct goes to the heart of my authority and the authority of judges across the country."
Find these news and politics stories in this week's Seven Days...
As some farmers push for more freedom to sell raw milk, an advocacy group reports that nearly 2,000 customers bought more than 53,000 gallons of the unpasteurized product in a recent 12-month period.
For those of you interested in following the raw milk debate, head over to the website of Rural Vermont, which released its annual raw milk report Wednesday morning. Because Vermont doesn't require farmers selling raw milk to register with the state, the Rural Vermont report is the best snapshot we have of what raw milk sales look like on the ground.
To recap, raw milk is unpasteurized. In Vermont, it's sold directly by farmers to consumers, and in almost all cases consumers have to travel to the farm to purchase this milk. Vermont passed regulations in 2009 covering the sale of raw milk, setting out guidelines for farmers intended to protect public health. People who love raw milk really love raw milk — but conversely, public health officials stand firm in their conviction that consuming unpasteurized milk (which hasn't been treated to kill off pathogens and bacteria) could make people sick.
The Rural Vermont report includes the results of a survey and information gathered from farmers at a raw milk summit held in Bethel in October. Rural Vermont received survey responses from 110 farmers, 80 of whom identified themselves as current sellers of raw milk. (The additional 30 were past producers, aspiring raw milk sellers, or farmers interested in the topic.)
Some interesting tidbits:
* Seventy-six farms reported the quantity of raw cow and goat milk they sold between November 1, 2012 and October 31, 2013 — which cumulatively totaled 53,307 gallons. The largest producer sold as much as 9,000 gallons, and the median amount was 240 gallons per farm.
The overall milk sales to nearly 2,000 customers brought in just more than $373,000. The largest per-farm income from raw milk sales reported was $90,000. Farmers selling raw cows' milk reported an average income of $6,718 from the sales.
Some farmers have ceased selling raw milk. When asked to elaborate on why, answers included: "paranoia;" "farm is too far off the beaten path for customers to travel;" and "I have one cow and will not go through the rigmarole that is now involved."
Rural Vermont also presents a number of suggested changes to the current raw milk law, which they say were "consistently raised" by farmers at raw milk gatherings held around the state. These include, among other suggestions:
File photo by Sarah Priestap.