CALEDONIA COUNTY – The Caledonia County Senate District is currently represented by Jane Kitchel of Danville who is retiring at the end of this session. Candidates running for the seat this year are Republican Scott Beck of Saint Johnsbury; Democrat Amanda Cochran of St. Johnsbury; Republican J.T. Dodge of Newbury and Democrat Shawn T. Hallisey of Waterford.
Question: Tell us a bit about your background, why you want to fill the position and why you are a good candidate for it.
Beck: Beck has served 10 years as representative of Caledonia-Essex district. He is a navy veteran and an educator. He’s spent 25 years teaching mathematics and social studies. He and his wife have owned a bookstore in St. Johnsbury for 20 years. During his time as representative, he served on the House Ways and Means and Education Committees. He is very comfortable representing a district that has a very broad spectrum of political ideals and that has at times left him at odds with those who lean farther to either side of the political spectrum. “I’m a believer that if you’re getting yelled at by both sides then you’re right about where you should be.”
Cochrane: I was very lucky to live in a home where I had unconditional love, and I think not everyone has that so I was lucky to start out that way. I have a blended family with two older siblings and one younger sibling. I was always in the middle, which sometimes meant I needed to play diplomat when it came to important things like the remote control. It also meant when things got tougher for my family, dealing with real challenges around financial issues or my sister’s intense mental health, I was able to step up and be that voice to help my family and be a leader around those topics. Because of that I moved into a career that has a lot to do with supporting and helping other people. At 22, I worked at WISE, which supported survivors of sexual and domestic violence. I remember the resilience of the women who had to leave a violent situation. I remember being really moved by how strong they have to be. That really helped me find my purpose and underscored my interest and need to support others, especially those in need. That actually led me to get my MBA in nonprofit management, so I could work on behalf of others but really do so in a way that would use finances in the most efficient way possible. I’ve been with Umbrella as its executive director for the past six years. So I feel like my experience and my passion for supporting others has brought me here. When Senator Jane Kitchel asked me to run in her seat, I was honored to be able to continue her moderate voice in the state legislature, but it’s really been my path and my family that has led me here today.
Dodge: I’ve been an I.T. systems engineer for the past 20 years. I run a group called No Carbon Tax Vermont. For the past six to eight years we’ve been pretty active at the statehouse around legislation that has to do with carbon taxes and fees and those sorts of mandates. When I was younger I worked for Americorps building access for disabled and elderly folks. I worked at an inpatient adolescent addiction facility in my twenties. I worked at the Alcohol Crisis Team in Burlington years ago. I know we have addiction problems, so it’s important that I touch on that. My experience as a systems engineer helps pay attention to the issues and I’m regularly involved in discussions on economics. I bring a fresh perspective. We need a bold voice. The voices in there now aren’t bold enough. I feel like Vermonters have been pushed around by the supermajority.
Hallisey: I’m from Waterford. I’m a nursing home administrator by trade. Because of that I understand economics, finances and budgets. I understand compromise and consensus to solve problems with groups of people. That’s one reason I’m an excellent candidate. I’m also an excellent candidate because I got into the race on my own. No one appointed me. I went out and collected 175 signatures, I’ve been going door to door. I’m very ecstatic and humbled by the response I’m getting.
Question: Taxes keep rising as we address the needs of an increasingly complex society. What’s the right balance between meeting the needs of the population and keeping taxes manageable? How does funding schools fit into that?
Beck: School spending increases in the last two years have been very “aggressive.” To combat these increases Beck gave three solutions to funding education that he has been working to implement within the legislature. The first is the common level of appraisal reform. The second is more closely connecting the school district to the local tax rate so that school spending is proportional to what homestead taxpayers pay. His third solution is property tax credit reform. He is in favor of a simpler model of taxation in which you pay your property taxes in the fall and you get a credit in the spring when you file your income taxes.
Cochrane: Property taxes are too high. People cannot afford to pay the taxes that are being presented to them today. The solution needs to come from school boards looking at the budgets; from community members that understand there will be property taxes; from the legislature as well that realizes there needs to be compromises on some of these challenges and funding needs that we have. It will take people who are able to talk to one another across the aisle; people who are willing to collaborate; people who listen deeply to one another to make change. Our kids and our schools deserve a high class and wonderful education, and I believe it needs to be decided community by community. We need to figure out how to be sustainable in our expenses.
Dodge: Right now we have a supermajority that makes a majority of the big decisions of what direction the state will go. A lot of the ideas that come out of the supermajority are very compassionate, but I think the problem is when we get in this mindset where we should pay for everything that’s compassionate we end up in a situation where we overspend. We need to be conscious of the budgets at the statehouse. School affordability is of the utmost importance. We have a major problem with Act 27. I like the foundation and weights, but we can’t make changes in the middle of the year. We need to hold fast on what we agree on, not change it, until we all agree on it.
Hallisey: Schooling and education is very important: If our kids aren’t competitive out in the workforce, then our county and our towns won’t be competitive when it comes to economics in the world and the state. I’m prepared to advocate for reducing property taxes, stopping the double digit increases. I believe if the state legislature mandates something on the school system, that money needs to come out of the general fund so they can afford it.
Question: What do you see as the solution to creating affordable home ownership and rental options for Vermonters? How does that work to make Vermont attractive for young people?
Beck: The ownership and rental options in Vermont are too expensive for the average Vermonters. He is in favor of bringing down the cost of housing through regulatory reform. This would entail taking out some of the red-tape and soft costs that make building in the state expensive. He is in favor of constructing mass produced housing on smaller plots of land as an option that is more cost-effective for those who are trying to enter the housing market.
Cochrane: I think housing is one of the most important issues facing Vermonters in our district. We need housing to attract workers to our community, and also ensure we have affordable housing for people who already live here. There really needs to be multifaceted planning. There simply isn’t enough housing stock in this region to retain any growth. We need to look at building dense housing in town centers and city centers and not necessarily build further out away from services. A lot of the housing that needs to be developed so folks can access schools and walkable amenities. A lot of folks don’t have vehicles, so it’s important for them to have access to services, food, and markets. You can get a lot of benefits when building in town.
Dodge: It’s a housing crisis from top to bottom. Act 250 was originally established to slow the growth of Vermont, folks want to keep Vermont the way it used to be. But now it’s time that we grow a little bit. I think we need to make a hole in Act 250 for housing from tip to bottom, as much as a housing boom as we can create if possible. Hallisey: It’s very important that we don’t overdevelop our state. There was just an Act 250 put forward, where we discussed the development in dense areas such as the downtown of Hardwick. That’s where it needs to be done. We need to protect the farmland for agriculture, forestry and fish and game, those are vital parts of our economy and lifestyle and we need to keep that because it’s wonderful where we live.
Question: Gov. Scott seems to be having difficulty striking the right balance between funding housing for homeless people and reducing spending on programs to house the homeless, what do you see as possible solutions to help Vermont’s homeless population?
Beck: The solution is more housing stock, with a supply that meets the current housing needs of Vermont. He cited Northeast Kingdom Community Action as an example of an organization which is having success in sheltering people and helping them get more stabilized in a permanent housing situation.
Cochrane: The more we’re able to shift motel spending, which can be really exorbitant, a lot more cost efficiencies can go into housing folks in community apartments. A lot of communities have opened homeless shelters, again another cost effective way to help people as they are in their homeless moments. They’re not homeless forever, not homeless people, they just don’t have a house right now. Being able to have shelters is another cost effective way to reduce expenses at motel rooms. You can help them get connected to other long term housing options so they’re off the street permanently. Through the wraparound support and moving towards community based solutions like apartments that are managed by other organizations, that can help alleviate some of those costs associated with the homeless population.
Dodge: There aren’t enough homes for folks that even want to move around, someone who just wants to move from one place to another place. It’s very difficult in many places in Vermont, and very expensive. I think relieving some of the regulation in Act 250 while being very careful of our flood mitigation. We ought to be careful where we build so we are not impacting future Vermonters. We have to carefully consider our regulations, and I would like to see a lot of deregulation in real estate.
Hallisey: I’m concerned about the homeless population. It’s popping up all over the state. Oftentimes we try to help people and solve their problems, but they don’t really want them to be solved. So we need a better mental health system, better interview system. We need to figure out what the homeless really want in order to move forward and become viable citizens in our society.
Question: How can the State meet the challenges of maintaining infrastructure of roads, bridges, water and sewer systems as weather events are increasingly destructive? As more vehicles become electric and the gas tax becomes less effective at funding those needs, how can that funding gap be filled?
Beck: Resilience is “going to be a community by community basis.” “Nobody knows their community and their own infrastructure better than the towns, road commissioners and in a lot of cases people who have lived there their whole lives,” he said. He listed debris removal and selected dredging as steps towns can take towards flood mitigation in the future. He said the legislature recently passed an increased registration fee for EV cars to compensate for losses to the gas tax.
Cochrane: As we move ahead in the coming years, it’s going to be essential in investing how we can be better and more resilient so that we can withstand these inevitable climate shifts that are occurring. Whatever policy we have related to resilience and climate change, we are going to need to make sure we are centering the people that are most vulnerable to those impacts, particularly those who are on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Too often we think of solutions that may be on the backs of those who are already financially strained from month to month. Adding more taxes onto their bills is not necessarily the answer.
Dodge: I would like us to build resiliency into our water treatment center that are seemingly overflowing after every significant storm. I know St. Johnsbury had their water treatment plant completely overwhelmed. Untreated water is flowing into the rivers each time. We need to stop making such a crisis over the climate and start making a crisis over this issue.
Hallisey: It’s important for us to repair our roads, so people can travel and get from point A to point B. It’s important to repair our roads so we can have commerce. Commerce, also tourism. That brings increased tax dollars to our state, and with increased tax dollars we are able to afford needed repairs.
Question: Please share your perspective on how the issue of abortion should be addressed in our State and Country. What specific policies do you support to ensure women’s health and reproductive rights are adequately considered?
Beck: He was a sponsor of bill H.57 which said Vermont will have no say on abortion rights in the state. He also voted in favor of Proposal 5 which enshrined reproductive autonomy in Vermont as a constitutional and fundamental right. “I trust women and doctors far more than I trust the government,” he said. He said he is happy where Vermont stands on the issue as of now.
Cochrane: A woman’s right to choose is very important to me and to a lot of Vermonters. The upcoming presidential election has many of us worried for our daughters, ourselves and our sisters in other states. We’ve been lucky that Vermont has been strident in ensuring safe access to abortion. Whatever ends up happening on the national level, our policies will ensure that Vermonters have access to abortion, contraceptives; everything related to women’s health. That is really the standard of care and that our medical professionals put forward a standard of care for women’s health.
Dodge: First trimester abortion is about the extent of what I’m comfortable supporting.
Hallisey: Plain and simple, it’s a woman’s right to choose. It’s nobody else’s responsibility, not the government, not God’s, not anyone’s responsibility to tell a woman what to do with her body.
Question: Is there anything we haven’t asked you about that you’d like to share and might be important to your constituents?
Beck: He is confident in his experience in the legislature and his experience as a small business owner, an educator and someone who is active within the community. He welcomes residents of Caledonia to talk to him about the issues they care about and challenge him, “because you should be challenged when you make votes that impact people’s lives.”
Cochrane: I really value being reasonable, common sense, related to spending and related to how we use our public funding. It’s something that people may assume, “oh I bet they want to spend lots of money”, but I really think of myself as a moderate Democrat. It’s a really important role for someone in the Senate today in Montpelier to have; to carry that voice Jane Kitchel had; to be that voice, to be pragmatic and look at issue to issue and think how this would impact Vermonters, despite party lines. I’d like to ensure that people know I understand and share the concern that additional taxes may burden people.
Dodge: Affordability is my most important issue. I’m against the carbon tax, fees and mandates in general. They hurt Vermonters and in the long run they’re not the way to go. Electric vehicles should pay their fair share, I don’t want to subsidize electric vehicles. If I was a senator I would vote against it. I’m running because I have two children. I’m worried for my children that they won’t stay. There’s not a lot of opportunity; we need to build back Vermont.
Hallisey: I want to protect agriculture, forestry, fish and game, and our way of life here. We have a beautiful way of life; we don’t want it to be overtaken by suburban sprawl. There’s a possibility to save money with the prison system. We import prisoners and it costs a lot of money to the taxpayers. [ed. Note: Fact-checking shows that Vermont does not import prisoners from out of state.] We should stop immediately importing these prisoners. We shouldn’t export them either. I’m sure we pay top dollar to keep them in another state. I want to bring up that I am a Democrat. I’m a middle of the road, old style, blue dog Democrat from the seventies. We need to immediately start the next session with a caucus with the progressives from the other side of the state. We cannot spend ourselves silly; money is not infinite and we need to make sure we’re looking at all the programs that help our citizens and get the best bang for our buck.
Shawn T. Hallisey did not submit a photo.
Candidate responses are summarized here. Complete video programs of the recorded interviews are available at HCTV.US, the HCTV YouTube Channel and can be downloaded from the HCTV Vimeo page.
