MONTPELIER – “All roads lead to the Northeast Kingdom,” at least according to U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who stood before a packed Cedar Creek room last Thursday afternoon to rally support during the region’s Statehouse takeover day. On either side of the lunchtime rally, local advocates, elected officials and NEK residents testified on a range of issues that hit close to home.
Welch was joined by State Treasurer Mike Pieciak; Rep. Michael Marcotte, R-Coventry; Rep. Leanne Harple, D-Glover; and fellow Glover resident Lt. Gov. John Rodgers in summing up the matters most pressing to NEK residents: how to attract and keep young people in the area, how to build affordable houses that allow people to own a patch of land and how to support farmers who rely on marketplace health insurance and have recently lost the enhanced subsidies that helped keep plans affordable.
But the biggest applause of the day went to Harple, in her plea to keep small schools small: “A small school isn’t a failed school. A rural school isn’t a business mistake,” she said. “We can’t legislate away geography. We can’t consolidate rural life, and we can’t remap Vermont into being something it’s not.”
