Education is a right and a responsibility. I know Vermont schools. I led the Addison Northwest School District as board chair for five years, and I have been involved in every significant educational conversation for the past decade. We need to be clear-eyed about our inefficiencies and costs and focused on providing excellent educational opportunities for all students.

• Education costs in Vermont are unsustainable. We must address skyrocketing health care costs, the growing expenses of facilities, and the model for providing equitable student services. Currently, there is almost $500 million in school construction debt. Without changes, there will be an estimated $6 billion in construction costs over the next two decades. Conversations about property taxes, efficiency, and, yes, even broad educational transformation must continue.
• Reforms must be fair to small districts. Our schools are crucial to our shared way of life. As we pursue big changes in our educational system, we need a representative who will make sure that communities like ours benefit from new policies. Addison County cannot bear the brunt of education reform while others are not willing to do so. I know the pressures of our current system, and I will be a tenacious advocate for our district in Montpelier.

Housing availability will shape Addison County today and in the future. We want more young families to live here, shorter commutes to work, and farms that are passed on to the next generation. Vermonters are struggling to find a place to live and afford their rent. Over the next decade, the housing stock needs to grow by 2% a year.

• Expand statewide efforts. In Montpelier, I will support tax incentives to expand municipal infrastructure, identify underused properties, and promote higher-density development in urban and high-growth opportunity areas.
• Advocate for our needs. In Vermont and particularly in Addison County, the housing stock is older than the national average, resulting in higher maintenance and energy costs. We need energy efficiency upgrades and smart investments that pay for themselves by attracting new families.
• Big ideas. Our municipalities have gotten increasingly creative. To build for the broad middle of working families, we need to keep bringing people together and generate new ideas. Let’s keep looking at other solutions and figure out how to make them work here.

Health care is a right and essential to our dignity. Doctors, nurses, families, and caretakers know our current system does not work. Costs are out of control, and access to care is getting harder, especially in rural communities. In schools alone, health care costs have increased up to 40% over the last five years.

• Access to care. Faced with rising costs, health care facilities that end services leave rural communities without options or emergency services. Vermont needs a statewide group to oversee and support facilities and services whose closure would impact the whole state, limiting access and crowding existing facilities.
• Primary care and women’s health. Insurance companies incentivize more services, not better outcomes. I will continue the work of this legislative session to address the shortage of primary care providers. I will also fight tirelessly to protect reproductive care and a woman’s right to choose.
• Price transparency. It is hard to find and understand information about the costs of health care in Vermont. Costs do vary widely. For example, a standard colonoscopy in Vermont could cost anywhere from $1400 or $8200. We need to standardize data submissions and create user-friendly dashboards, as New Hampshire and other states have done.

Vermont is a place where people care for one another. Strong local economies, clean water, working farms, and neighbors who know each other — these are not accidents. People show up and work together. That is Vermont at its best. When Washington cuts programs and protections that rural Vermonters depend on, we need proactive and collaborative voices in Montpelier who are ready to respond, not just react.

At work, in my church, and with my neighbors, I have a proven ability to bring people together to generate new ideas, make real policy, and implement those changes. We can only solve our biggest problems — environmental, economic, health care — when we stop going at it alone. People are frustrated with our system, but burning it down without a clear plan forward, as we’ve seen these last two years from Washington, DC, hurts our most vulnerable — the working poor. I know that change and action take time, consultation, listening, advocacy, and the tenacity to fight against the forces that maintain the status quo.

People want to be able to choose how to worship, who to love, when to build a family, and what dreams to pursue. A society in which people have those freedoms requires that we work together. That is Vermont’s state motto — Freedom and Unity — in action.

Everyone deserves a fair shot — a warm home, a good school, a sense of security, and a chance to provide for themselves and their loved ones. As an elected official, I have used freedom, fairness, and a concern for the most vulnerable as values that guide my work, and I will bring those values to Montpelier.