WASHINGTON COUNTY – Mark Mihaly lives in Calais and has represented the Washington-6 House district covering Plainfield, Marshfield and Calais since 2023. He is running unopposed as a Democrat to fill that seat for another two years.
Question: Tell us a bit about your background, why you want to fill the position and why you are a good candidate for it.
Mihaly: I spent a lifetime as an environmental lawyer. Then I ran the environmental program at Fairmont Law School and became its dean. I retired and ended up on the select board for a few years. I really enjoyed the variety, the fun and the challenge of doing something good for my community.
When Janet Ansell retired from the state legislature, we started looking around for someone young, a young woman preferably, to take her position. We couldn’t find anyone who could afford to do it. Which is one of the problems. The legislature is part time. There’s no health insurance and the pay is almost non-existent. The only people who can afford to do it are people who have alternative sources of income.
I’m on the Appropriations Committee and really enjoy working for the people in my district.
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?
Mihaly: While we have a good progressive tax system in Vermont, we cannot tax the poor. We cannot tax the middle class any more than they’re paying now. We can tax the wealthy a little more than we have. They’ve received three major tax cuts from the federal government in the last 20 years. We could increase their taxes somewhat and use that money to help pay for better schools, more public safety and housing.
The solution to the school tax issue is complicated. Anyone who says different doesn’t know what they’re talking about. We’ve been told by the teachers, by the principals, the administrators and the parents not to act quickly. It is my hope we can get together with the governor in the next session and appoint a sort of a blue-ribbon commission to go all around the state and talk to people and come back to us with specific proposals at the end of this year so we can act in the next session. I’m optimistic we can do something. There’s no easy answer. There’s a lot of local control. People like it, but it’s expensive.
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?
Mihaly: The single most important issue we face is affordable housing. The answer of what it’s going to take is money. One of the problems we have is some people say the regulation is burdensome, it’s too hard, Act 250, etcetera. I’m sorry, that’s just not the case. The math doesn’t add up. Maybe 5% of the cost of a house is due to regulation, the other 95% is just the cost of the land and the house. Right now, it costs about a half a million dollars to produce a new house in Vermont, whether it’s a house or an apartment. The average Vermonter, a nurse, or a contractor or a carpenter, can’t afford to pay half a million dollars. It has to be less, which means the state, using state money, has to buy down the cost of housing. There’s no other way. That’s going to be a problem. To raise that money we proposed in the legislature that we increase the income tax by 3% on incomes over half a million dollars, That didn’t go anywhere in the Senate or with the governor. Something like that is going to have to happen. Without money, we will not solve the housing crisis.
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?
Mihaly: This is an area where lack of cooperation between the governor and the legislature has really been damaging to the people who are most in need, the homeless.
Everybody agrees on one thing: Motels are not an ideal solution. They are very expensive. Every year, we spend tens of millions of dollars on motels. We’ve been asking the governor for a plan to deal with this problem for six years and nothing has happened.
A plan was produced during the legislative session, and it would be a combination, because it’s a complicated population, some people need special help. Some people, they’re mentally ill. Some people are families with a lot of kids. Some are old people. Some are people who aren’t healthy. Each of these populations needs special help and each of those takes money. It would take about $100 million a year to really make a major dent in the homeless problem. Absent raising that money through taxes, I think on the wealthy, we’re every year going to be facing the same crisis. It’s going to be getting cold, and we’re going to be forced to use motels.
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?
Mihaly: There’s no question the kind of flooding we’ve seen in my district in Plainfield, which has been terrible, much worse than reported, that’s going to happen. The saddest thing about that, beyond the 15 homes or so that were destroyed and another 20 badly damaged, more than six, maybe eight bridges that went, is it’s going to happen again. And it’s going to happen again soon.
In the last flood and the big flood a year ago towns were on their own. The state paid most attention to state infrastructure. Towns can’t do it, they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the money. Places like Plainfield are essentially broke. They spent over $300,000 last year and they still haven’t seen the money from FEMA.
In my mind, the only solution is much more state involvement and federal involvement. We have to work with our friends in the Senate and in the House and get more federal money in a more reliable way into Vermont. This is a bigger problem than we can handle on our own.
As to the gas tax, yes, it’s going down. it should go down and disappear with electric cars. We’re going to have to find an alternative approach. I think it’s going to be an approach which is per mile. You’re going to have to register how many miles you drove. Your taxes will be based on that.
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?
Mihaly: I support the amendment that would guarantee equality of treatment for all Vermonters on every basis, including a right to access abortion. I don’t think this issue is about whether abortion is a good idea or not, because nobody is suggesting people who don’t want to have an abortion should be forced to have an abortion. No one is dictating what individuals do. The question is whether we should use the power of the state, the power of government, to impose one view on this divisive issue on the whole population. I do not agree with that. I do not think we should be using the power of the state to tell people what they do with their bodies.
Question: Is there anything we haven’t asked you about that you’d like to share and might be important to your constituents?
Mihaly: There are two other areas of concern and the governor has mentioned them. Unfortunately, not much is being done about it. One is public safety. Our judicial system is kind of falling apart right now in Vermont.
From the time someone who commits a crime is arrested, to the time they go to trial, it’s like three years. During those three years, we can’t put them in jail unless they committed a dangerous and violent crime. If it was just breaking into a car or something where they were there on drugs and they’re looking for some cash, so they broke into somebody’s house and no one was home, we can’t just throw them in jail and keep them there. The problem is, what do we do about the delay? I think that there’s only one answer: More prosecutors, more judges, more defense attorneys and more victims advocates. That’s going to cost money. So it all comes down to one thing. How can we increase our budget to address problems like public safety, housing, schools and health care? How can we do that without burdening the middle class and the poor? I think there are solutions. I’m on the Appropriations Committee. I think we’re going to have to get the governor to go along with them. I don’t know if he will.
