House primary race draws 100+ to candidate listening session
July 20, 2024 | By Cheryl Casey | Correspondent July 24 update: A second forum previously planned for Huntington on July 11 has been rescheduled for Tuesday, July 30, at the Huntington Public Library from 7 to 9 p.m. All of the candidates plan to attend and the event will follow a similar format to the one held in Waterbury. The library is located at 2156 Main Road, Huntington.
Audience members raise their hands in agreement with speaker Angela Hilsman at the July 17 House primary candidate forum at the Waterbury Main Street fire station. Photo by Gordon Miller
Affordability was the key word among voters voicing their top concerns to the four candidates vying for the Washington-Chittenden state House district’s two seats in the upcoming primary election.
More than 100 local residents gathered at the Waterbury Main Street fire station last Wednesday night for a candidate listening session.
Waterbury Select Board Chair Roger Clapp (standing) goes over the format rules. Photo by Gordon Miller
Democratic incumbent Reps. Tom Stevens and Theresa Wood joined challengers Elizabeth Brown, also running on the Democratic ticket, and Republican Jonathan Griffin for the event arranged and sponsored by Brown’s campaign.
The Vermont state primary election is Tuesday, Aug. 13, with early/absentee balloting already open. In addition to Vermont’s statewide offices including governor, lieutenant governor and one U.S. Senate seat, voters will choose candidates for the entire Vermont Legislature. Primary winners will be on the Nov. 4 general election ballot.
Waterbury in Washington County and the Chittenden County communities of Bolton, Huntington and Buel’s Gore make up the Washington-Chittenden House district. All of the House candidates are Waterbury residents.
Moderated by Waterbury Select Board chair Roger Clapp, the forum gave the candidates five to seven minutes of introductory and closing remarks. Amy Marshall-Carney, treasurer for the Brown campaign, served as timekeeper for both the candidates and members of the public who took two-minute turns posing comments and questions to the candidates.
Clapp explained a few rules at the outset: “If you like what you hear, you can just raise your hand” instead of clapping or shouting to “keep a little more decorum and avoid unruly behavior.” He also requested that comments avoid national politics to focus on “town and state issues of community interest.”
Audience members complied as hands went up waving each time someone stepped away from the microphone at the end of their comments. Common themes soon became evident linked to people’s ability to afford to live in Vermont, especially the issues of child care, housing, and education. Flood recovery and mitigation were topics on attendees’ minds, as well.
The candidates open
The incumbents spoke first. Stevens emphasized his time serving as chair of the House Committee on General and Housing to advance initiatives for “developing and investing in programs for affordable housing,” as well as advocating for paid family leave and an increased minimum wage. “I’ve been working on issues that are underlying factors in the success of Vermont’s economy,” he said.
According to Stevens, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the state has “invested close to $1 billion, mostly federal dollars, in housing and rental supports,” adding “now that the federal dollars have gone away, we’re relying on tax dollars, which are much harder to come by.”
Wood stressed her resume of public service in a long list of roles, including, “in an unprecedented responsibility, I was appointed three times to the final negotiations on the state budget as one of three members of the House on the budget conference committee.”
“Those three slots are normally filled by all Appropriations Committee members,” Wood explained, “but because of my responsibility on the House Human Services Committee, and Human Services being the largest state agency, and because of my background, I was happy to be able to do that.”
Griffin spoke next, noting that as a father of three young children, the costs of education, childcare, and home ownership are top priorities. “We spent almost $36,000 in childcare last year. That is something that is not sustainable. A lot of families can’t afford that,” he said. “We were fortunate that we were able to because I work two jobs. I’ve worked two jobs for eight years. I feel the financial pain.”
Griffin further acknowledged that “what is affordable depends on your priorities.” He said he wants to listen to what those priorities are before developing a legislative agenda.
Brown’s remarks similarly highlighted her experience as a working mom. “I understand the grind and the hardship of two working parents,” she said, noting that only because she was able to step back from the corporate world at the end of last year could she consider running for office.
“I’ve been paying attention the last ocuple of years to what’s going on in the State House, I would say with some concern and more recently with anger,” Brown said. “I’ve been watching, as a financial services professional, for the cost of living to go through the roof here. Affordability to me is the number one issue we have going on right now.”
Brown addressed recent public criticism of her campaign donor list, which is dominated by supporters from outside the legislative district and includes a number of donors known for contributing to Republican campaigns. Referring to herself as a “Democratic woman,” Brown said she is “not registered as anything” and has “people from the full [political] spectrum behind me.”
Vermont voters do not register according to party affiliation. Voters may choose to vote on any primary ballot.
Voters have their say
Nearly a quarter of the attendees stepped up to the podium to express their views, many on Vermont’s affordability. Several spoke to what Waterbury resident Mike Bard called Vermont’s “total affordability crisis,” including John Thrallkill, of Waterbury Center, who wondered “who is going to maintain your car, or your house?” when working-class Vermonters are driven out of the state.
Also a Waterbury Select Board member, Bard noted that Vermonters on a fixed income find increasing education taxes unacceptable. Wilda White, of Waterbury Center, agreed. “I am not able to afford to retire here,” she said.
Randall Street resident Rick Boyle insisted “we’re all struggling” with the cost of living in Vermont. Boyle’s downtown property was flooded three times in the last year, and as a self-ascribed “flood survivor,” he noted that a focus on “just community issues is ridiculous” because we are all affected by federal regulations. Boyle said he sees affordability as “not just a tax issue” but challenge due to broader government favoritism for corporations “making the whole country unaffordable.”
Kia Winchell-Commo, a resident of Guptil Road in Waterbury Center, also shared that she’s worried about her future in Vermont. “Here’s my situation: a 1970s house valued at $184,000, told I could probably put it on the market for just $385,000, which I think is just ridiculous. My taxes now are over $5,000 a year, just had 18 inches of water go through the side yard. Never had a child go to the school system. So $4,000 of my taxes go to a school system I never use. What do I pay?”
Winchell-Commo said she feels forced to choose between an increasing tax bill and the cost of repairing her storm-damaged yard, which might just need repairs again in a few months. One alternative, she said, may be to sell her house and move to someplace like Tennessee where the cost of living is cheaper than Vermont.
Excavation contractor and fomer Select Board member Chris Viens echoed that theme. “Home ownership is supposed to be the American dream,” he said. But increasing property taxes may force him and his wife LeeAnn to look at their home as a liability rather than an asset. “I’m looking down the barrel of two choices: selling my home and having to get out, or having my home go up for tax sale,” Viens said. “I want to ask, what kind of choices are those?”
Waterbury Center resident Joe Camarratta spoke on behalf of Waterbury’s House Task Force, pointing to the importance of incentivizing landlords in the rental market. “One of the challenges that we hear when we speak to people is how difficult it is to be a landlord in Vermont, and how much risk the landlords take on themselves,” he explained. When AirBnB makes short-term rentals an easy choice, the long-term rental market suffers, Camarratta added.
Audience members listen during Wednesday’s forum. Photo by Gordon Miller
Education costs on voters’ minds
Related to the high cost of property ownership is the cost of education, and this year’s 14% increase in local school taxes is a significant sore spot for voters. This year, voters in Waterbury and the other Harwood school district towns took three tries to pass a budget for the 2024-25 school year.
Some told the candidates that they believe Vermont’s education system is broken. Waterbury Center resident Don Schneider is a retired school principal and former principal of Thatcher Brook Primary School—now Brookside Primary School. He said Vermont has too many “micro-schools” with fewer than 100 students. “We need to not have [them]. When I read the school board was not going to close the middle school at Harwood, that did it for me,” he said.
Too many schools require too many administrators and superintendents and are financially unsustainable, Schneider continued.
Mary Koen shares an opinion. Photo by Gordon Miller
Constancia Gomez, who worked this last year as a substitute Spanish teacher at Crossett Brook Middle School, wondered how her home country of Argentina, a less-developed nation than the United States, seemed to have figured out how to provide affordable education. “I think there is enough money to have every single kid even doing Spanish or French when they are five years old,” she insisted.
Downtown resident and a retired educator Mary Koen said that the affordability of school taxes has always been an issue, but “our taxes go to the common good” of educating our children, she said, adding, “We’ve got incredible graduates doing incredible things from this district.”
Questioning government safety nets
The third pillar of the affordability issue for constituents was the cost of childcare and opinions shared with the candidates varied widely. Parents Aba and James Grace couldn’t attend the forum but sent a written statement on the topic for friend Jim Reilly to read. It told of their experience “often driving an hour or more for childcare.” Act 76 that went into effect in 2023 helped expand child care in Vermont including in Stowe. “Our family was able to get a spot after a two-year wait. Childcare has been essential for our family, they wrote. “But the job is not done. Educators are still underpaid, turnover is high, families are still struggling to afford childcare, and thousands of childcare spaces are still needed to meet current demand.”
Steven Martin comments. Photo by Gordon Miller
Other constituents, however, questioned putting public funding into programs that only some Vermonters use. “When I had my first child, I didn’t expect any money to help with childcare. That was our responsibility. My mom was sick a few years ago–I didn’t ask for any help,” recounted Blush Hill resident Dick Patterson. “Some of the programs are niceties,” he said. “But what I don’t like is another 44 cents coming out of somebody’s paycheck to help somebody take care of their kids. That’s not right. That’s their responsibility.”
Lifelong Waterbury resident Steve Martin summed up the sentiment saying that “the state is going in the wrong direction.” Now retired, Martin said he and his wife “had and raised two children. We paid for their meals, we paid for their childcare. I understand this is all hard, but by my way of thinking, I don’t think it’s morally right that because someone has a need, that you have a claim to the work and earnings that other people have.”
Some cautions
Those who spoke more generally pressed the candidates to consider what it will take to provide the kind of leadership they are promising.
Eliza Novak Smith, of Waterbury Center, pointed out her discomfort with the unknown policy agendas of newcomers Griffin and Brown. “Getting your values translated into actual policy is all that matters,” she said.
Thrallkill suggested there is potential to find efficiencies within state government. Other speakers reminded the candidates that there are voters who do not have the privilege to attend such events as the forum because they have to work nights or don’t have transportation.
“I know after working for the past decade in community development and community engagement, it is more challenging to reach those who are often more burdened, often younger,” said Katie Gallagher who serves on the Waterbury Planning Commission.
Former Waterbury Select Board member Dani Kehlmann also reminded the candidates that “many don’t understand or have the chance to keep up with legislative work.”
Tom Gloor suggested that it’s important for the candidates “to pay as much attention to those who don’t vote for you” as those who do, urging them to “always think about who is it [policy] good for?”
Following the program, candidates talk with attendees including (on right) Landel Cochran, the only Huntington resident to comment at the forum. Cochran is a Republican candidate for the state Senate in the Addison district which includes Huntington. Photos by Gordon Miller
Candidates respond
After listening to comments and questions from the public for over an hour, the candidates had just a few minutes each to respond with concluding remarks.
They all said they thought accountability should be strengthened in the legislative process. Brown emphasized the need to “get laser-focused,” because “we cannot continue to just add.” For Griffin, an important takeaway from the evening was the potential for unintended consequences of policy-making. “Let’s slow down, do less and do it better,” he said.
Wood signaled her agreement that the cost of education isn’t affordable and listening to different points of view is crucial, but still “some people aren’t going to like what needs to be done,” she said, adding, “all of this is about representing all of the people in this community.”
Stevens concluded the event with his remarks on the persistence needed to effect change, noting, “Expensive propositions don’t happen overnight.”
A video recording of this forum can be viewed online at ORCAmedia.net.