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Provide funding and incentives to revitalize our communities through, supporting and increasing the number of small businesses to foster stronger commerce, community beautification, and working with community leaders to address community specific problems.
Our communities should have access to Community Centers, especially in towns with sizeable populations. This is something that many voters are excited about. Community Centers allow children, teens, and families to come together and safely meet other members of the community. They also provide safe spaces for children and teens to gather after school before parents are home from work.
Revitalizing our communities includes supporting our families and making Vermont affordable. Strong families are the backbone of our communities and giving them support is a crucial step in revitalizing a community.
For many Vermonters, especially nowadays, it's becoming harder and harder to keep food on the table and gas in the car. We need legislators who will keep this idea in mind and ensure that they're making life easier, not harder. A part of this is easing the tax burden and understanding that tax dollars are precious. Every expenditure coming from Montpelier must be crucial and have a specific goal in mind. We cannot spend tax dollars indiscriminately. If tax dollars are given away freely, then they must be going to worthy places.
I will work with fellow legislators to find solutions to problems including trash pollution, plastic pollution, and industrial wind turbines. Vermont problems need Vermont sized solutions.
It is in our best economic interest to conserve our air, water, and land. Vermont's largest industries are agriculture and tourism. Farmers want to raise healthy animals and healthy crops, and tourists don't come to Vermont to see trash and parking lots. It makes sense to keep our waterways and roadways clear of pollutants and trash.
Another focus of mine concerning this topic is the preservation of pollinator habitats. I am a passionate beekeeper, and I am concerned about their welfare. For the many apple orchards that dot our countryside, pollinators provide a valuable service and the least we can do is ensure that they have healthy habitats to live in.
I believe that it is important to co-habitat with nature, which is something that Vermonters have historically excelled in, but we've lost sight of this in our more developed areas. We need more trees in parking lots to provide shade. We need more 'green roofs' to reduce air conditioning demands in summer and provide habitats for pollinators and birds. We need to work within the existing ecosystems without being at the expense of industry and expansion.
Over the past century, more and more farms have shuttered their doors and closed, including those in my family. Even within the last five years, Vermont has seen unprecedented hardships for our farmers, especially for our smaller-scale dairy farms. With a lack of markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, dairy farmers were forced to dump milk and profits fell which worsened an already difficult situation.
I've spoken to dozens of farmers and visited several farms across the district. I've visited many dairy farms, apiaries, beef production farms, maple sugar houses, and crop farms. It's a gross understatement to say that farming is hard work, and now with the current economic downturn; the costs for our farmers are rising.
I have first-hand experience with this. The amount that my family pays for animal feed has abruptly risen and it has an effect on how we manage the prices of what produce and how we manage our money. Buying new equipment has had to wait and I've lost opportunities and profits. I run a family subsistence farm, so I can only imagine the stress and strain that this situation puts on Vermont's larger operations.
Enough farms have closed. Out of the thousands of homes I've visited, some of the saddest are the farms where new owners have moved in, and the barns go unused. I want to help our farmers and keep this very Vermont tradition alive
The young people of Vermont have been leaving the state in large numbers for decades. Lack of exciting opportunities, lack of amenities & nightlife, and a lack of graduate education & graduate job opportunities are some of the driving factors. As a younger person myself, it pains me to see so many young people leaving such a great state. I want to address the driving factors and create incentives to keep Vermont's youth from leaving.
This will not only partially address worker shortages and brighten our long-term economic outlook, but hopefully give young people a deeper feeling of meaning and pride in the state of Vermont.
A professional goal of mine is to ensure that the people of my district receive adequate representation. Of course, it is impossible to please everyone, but it's important to me that everyone is heard, and their concerns respected. This is one of the reasons why I have supporters everywhere and across all party lines.
I spoke to people throughout this district, and it was greatly expressed that they do not feel adequately represented or even heard. This must change. Phone calls must be returned, and emails must be answered.
I want every person that I am representing to have my phone number on their refrigerator. The people must have easy access to their legislators. Without easy access, a legislator has failed in their duties.
With the widespread political polarization across the country and in our own state, we must ensure that our legislators are dedicated to harmony and preserving the American tradition of civil discourse. We can disagree while remaining polite and respectful.
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