LAMOILLE COUNTY – Thirteen-year incumbent Senator Richard Westman from Cambridge won both the Democratic and Republican primaries. He is being challenged in this general election by Independent Maureen Heck from Hyde Park who gathered enough signatures to appear on the ballot.
The candidates’ answers to seven questions are summarized below.
Question: Tell us a bit about your background, why you want to fill the position and why you are a good candidate for it.
Westman: It’s a lifetime commitment for me. I’ve been in my local community my whole life and am very involved with it. I’ve had over 40 years in the state legislature. With so many members having left this year, my experience, especially in the Appropriations Committee will be important.
Heck: I’m a former AT&T employee with 30 years of experience. I have a diverse background in various sectors including finance, human resources and network management. I had roles in the union, benefit organization and access management, as well as work in the internet sector, including web to fax, shared hosting and content delivery network (CDN) to consumers. My extensive experience with international teams and multi-million dollar products and deployments have prepared me for this role in the senate.
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?
Westman: I would first start with an example within Lamoille County. Morrisville voted on school budgets three times this year. They spend less than the state average and test scores are well above the state average. Within the education funding formula, we penalize communities through the tax structure.
This year we raised taxes on short-term rentals and the cloud tax, plus putting in $50M from the general fund we’re going to have to make up. We’re probably facing the same thing next year. We should offer communities below the average a carrot and reward them, especially when their outcomes are above the state average.
Heck: There are a couple of hot topics. The school budget is part of that, [school] unification, the Global Warming Solutions Act and the carbon tax that could possibly double home heating costs. With Act 46, voted in 2016, progress reports about how it’s working are due next month with a draft proposal on cost-containments achieved. The whole pitch was to bring value with an enticement to reduce taxes to towns. Cost-containment is key, but no metadata has been collected and the legal mandate won’t happen. It’s a big red flag.
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 affordable?
Westman: Our young people can’t afford homes. The commitment we’ve made to VHCB and housing authorities throughout the state has increasing their funding the past few years over Covid-19. A lot of that money will roll through the system to help get projects started through groups like Lamoille Housing Partnership.
We need to keep up the effort in that area and talk about the permit process; not just Act 250, but also the time it takes to hear back about a permit, which can be as much as five months. We need a streamlined permit process, especially in towns affected by flooding.
Heck: With the Mount Laurel decision that came out of N.J., there has to be a certain number of units totally geared for low income people that qualify, including in the services area for fire, police and EMS. It has worked very well to have those kinds of guidelines with development projects. There need to be structure around that [here].
Furthermore, the supermajority acted to tighten Act 250, not loosen it, so they didn’t address the overall need of the housing crisis because that is a part of it.
Being a landowner myself, if I wanted to partition off a part of it, I could do that because of the Land Gains Tax. There is a six-year hold, or I am taxed 40%. Six years is not reasonable. I would look to reduce that. I don’t want to change the landscape of Vermont, but we do need comprehensive changes with Act 250 and the Land Gains Tax as well as changes that mirror the Mt. Laurel’s decision.
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?
Westman: We’re lost in the middle of this homeless debate. We’ve lowered the amount of homeless people to a much smaller group than it was. The hotel and motel program we offered through Covid-19 is not the best way to take care of people. The majority of the people who are left, and it’s the vast majority, have mental health and addiction concerns. We must match what we’re doing with programs to meet their needs long-term. Too many people are just concerned about getting somebody a room. It has to be matched with something straight through if we’re going to be successful dealing with the homeless.
Heck: I agree with the governor. There is a lot of waste, That’s one of the reasons I’m running. The fiscal responsibility is just absent from the body that’s been governing.
We can address the homelessness situation. I believe there’s plenty of ideas out there to do that, but we need the money. There are going to have to be cuts in these progressive programs.
I’d like to take a look at how much money has been wasted on studies that have been shelved and not acted upon. There needs to be a return on investment. We need to put an end to that and have some common-sense approach to spending.
We can then have some achievable funding to address homelessness. It’s going to take a lot of money, including the private sector and the federal government, and we have to start with our own statehouse.
Question: How can the state meet the challenges of maintaining the state and town 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?
Westman: We took an important step with electric vehicles by putting a tax on them this year, though nowhere near what is needed. That tax is going to deal directly with adding charging stations and working on changing a mindset that it should be a system whereby the user pays.
There’s not time to go into all the other parts of the infrastructure question.
Heck: My platform includes following suit with New Hampshire and Tennessee on banning geoengineering. We need to join together as states to deal with it because it is not regulated in this country, It’s undeniable this is happening, You just look at the skies and can see it happening right before your eyes; steering hurricanes, cloud seeding, making it rain and complete destruction of infrastructure on roads. People need to wake up before it’s too late. We need to get some kind of regulation and control around this. That is going to take the federal government and our regulators.
There’s a need for the Army Corps of Engineers to study river dredging to prevent further flooding and damage in hot spots. The state has done a wonderful job of road repairs expeditiously; It’s been incredible.
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?
Westman: In Vermont, with the passage of the constitutional amendment, it has been passed by the public and the legislature has settled that question here.
Heck: Vermont has already protected it in the State Constitution.
Question: Is there anything we haven’t asked you about that you’d like to share and might be important to your constituents?
Westman: The most important thing is overall affordability for young families to stay here. We are in a place where it’s more and more difficult for young people to be successful here. For example, we have about 17,000 less people working in Vt. on a daily basis that we did 15 years ago, It affects us all in numerous ways; 25% of the state is over 65 now. Older people need more services and it affects us in the state budget and isn’t healthy in the place where our young families can’t get started here.
Heck: I’m charged up by this campaign and excited by the opportunity to work across the aisle running as an independent candidate. There’s a darkness that’s come over the country and state since the Covid-19 pandemic. We need to keep working to dig ourselves out of that darkness. I want to bring light and change to Montpelier. I appreciate the opportunity here.
