The charming rural town of Fairlee, VT, is being threatened. Fairlee recently celebrated its 250th anniversary and is now at a turning point in its existence. The huge Tennessee-based box store Dollar General (DG) is proposing a 9,100 sq-ft store on Route 5 in Fairlee. The location is sited in the middle of an early 1900s neighborhood that happens to have been built by the same builder of Fairlee’s Town Hall. DG proposes to have a 15-foot tall plastic garish yellow road sign looming into the neighboring homes’ second story windows. Their business practices have often been cited as being subpar, namely unfair employee practices, settling for unkempt stores with meager landscaping, undermining the smaller, local retailers, and returning profits to corporate headquarters disregarding any allegiance to community.The Fairlee Development Review Board (DRB) has the authority to deny this development proposal. We have a tremendous opportunity, right now, to step up and define Fairlee, its village, and our community landscape. A box-store development of this magnitude and (lack of) character would negatively alter the direction, business landscape, and sense of community in Fairlee. It would create a permanent and potentially damaging effect.