LETTER: Kane Sweeney deserves your vote

Feb. 14, 2023  |  By Breck Stewart

To the community: 

March’s election is approaching quickly, and Waterbury residents have an opportunity to vote for a Select Board candidate who takes the most pressing issues in town seriously. Kane Sweeney has made his focus known in a simple and straightforward manner:  Housing in town is unaffordable and unavailable, and road conditions are abysmal. I’m of the mind he will work to correct these issues and deserves your vote. 

For those of my neighbors who are reading this and already know what I’m going to say, you aren’t the people I have to convince. You know firsthand the soaring cost of rent, the shrinking supply of places to live, and the decreasing quality of what you get for your money. For those who don’t, who showed up to the Edward Farrar Utility District meeting and weren’t convinced to construct new affordable housing in the village, I implore you to listen to the conversations happening around you. 

Real estate listings vanish overnight if they even get published at all before selling. Apartments have new tenants moving in before the old ones are out, meaning many folks never even get the opportunity to inquire about availability. At the same time, down the street from my house, a scene taking place all over the state plays out. Different cars park in the driveway of an Airbnb every week, turning one of the few single-family homes that was sold in the last year into a money-making business. Looking at its website, the property manager lists dozens of homes like it throughout the state. The owner lives in Stowe and advertises the property by its proximity to Stowe. These aren’t folks that care about the problems we face here in town. Our town’s housing crisis is more money in their pockets. 

For those who believe the housing issue isn’t a problem here, how has your experience been going out to eat, trying to get a car fixed, visiting a coffee shop? Signs everywhere talk about the ongoing staffing shortage at every business in town. It’s hard for service businesses to attract folks to work in town when they’d have to live 30 minutes or more away to afford housing. The math is simple: Wages in town cannot pay for a place to live here, and thus working folks will go elsewhere for housing and jobs. The amazing local businesses we have in town will not survive without them. Waterbury will not survive without them. All over the U.S., towns with a once vibrant local community are full of vacant vacation homes that no one lives in for most of the year, and a handful of rentals that force working people into ever smaller spaces at increasingly higher cost. Are we next?

I want to believe that we are not. The Select Board has the power to help ease, and eventually rectify the housing crisis in town. Kane has made it clear that he will prioritize affordable housing should we elect him to serve on the Select Board. Let’s get him there and make Waterbury an affordable place for everyone to live.

Breck Stewart

Waterbury