Your concerns are my priorities.

In over hundreds of conversations on porches and at town events across Barnet, Ryegate, and Waterford, you’ve told me what matters most. I’ve spent my life building housing, transportation, and opportunity in the Northeast kingdom, and I’m ready to take your voice to Montpelier.

Here’s what I hear, and here are the issues I’ll fight for:

The Everyday Squeeze

“I bought half a tank of kerosene this winter because that’s all I could afford. I used to fill it every Fall”

Groceries, fuel, electricity, insurance: everything costs more, and paychecks and fixed incomes aren’t keeping up. Much of that pressure is coming from Washington, where federal tariffs, funding cuts, and policy decisions are raising prices on nearly everything we buy. Young families and older neighbors on fixed incomes are feeling it most.

I can’t fix Washington from Montpelier. I can make sure that the state doesn’t make things worse, and that Vermont steps up where federal support is pulled back.

As your representative, I will:

• Insist on pursuing government accountability legislation because keeping an eye on government spending is an important part of keeping our taxes stable and our household budgets predictable.
• Protect heating and fuel assistance for households hit hardest by rising costs.
  Support community and grassroots efforts that help neighbors when federal help disappears.

Fair Property Taxes

“We love this house and have been here for over 40 years. But every time the tax bill goes up, I don’t know how much longer we can stay.”

Property taxes are the number one thing I hear about at the door. People who’ve lived in their homes for decades are wondering whether they can afford to stay.

 As your representative, I will:

• Work to shift education funding away from property taxes and toward a system based on ability to pay.
• Go after the real cost drivers behind school budgets: health insurance premiums, aging buildings, transportation, special education costs, and duplication.
• Require that any school district changes show measurable savings and a clear tax impact before they move forward.

Strong Local Schools

“If we lost access to our local independent high school, I’d be driving extra hours each day for my kids’ sports and extracurricular activities. As a single mom on one income, I just can’t afford the money, or the time.”

A rural school is where children learn, where families decide whether to stay, and often where a town gathers. Our local K-8 schools produce great student outcomes, and I value our public school and town tuitioning system that gives students high quality academic and career education. Our schools attract young families who want what we have here, and it should stay that way.

As your representative, I will:

• Support local school boards and local decision-making.
• Protect town tuitioning. Our towns have made it work for generations, and families here should keep the local options they count on.
• Make sure our new Cooperative Education Service Area (CESA) delivers what it promises: shared specialized staff, transportation, and purchasing that save money, with our local boards still making the decisions for our kids.
• Work alongside our local school boards through the study group process leading up to the 2028 Town Meeting votes on new school districts, and make sure families see the results they want.
• Oppose decisions that leave towns weaker and put kids on a bus for hours.
  Make sure every child has the resources they need to reach their full potential.

A Home You Can Afford

“My daughter wants to raise her kids here. She’s just not sure if she can afford it.”

A young couple shouldn’t have to leave our district to find a first home. An employer shouldn’t lose a good worker because there’s nowhere nearby to live. An older Vermonter shouldn’t be priced out of the town they helped build.

As your representative, I will:

• Cut unnecessary rules that make it expensive to build in our towns and villages.
• Extend the owner-builder exemption so Vermonters can build their own homes.
• Support starter homes, rentals, and senior housing, plus incentives to repair and renovate older homes and bring vacant apartments back into use.
• Help towns build the water, sewer, and road infrastructure new housing needs.
• Support down payment help for first-time buyers, and make room for accessory apartments, manufactured homes, and shared-equity ownership.
  I helped found Gilman Housing Trust, now RuralEdge. I’ve been doing this work for decades.

Health Care We Can Afford

“I’m paying more for insurance than my mortgage, and I still can’t get in to see a doctor.”

Vermonters pay the highest health insurance premiums in the country, and they go up every year. No family should have to choose between a prescription and groceries, and no small business should be crushed by premiums.

As your representative, I will:

• Fight for universal primary care, with any savings going directly to lower premiums.
• Pursue reference-based pricing to stabilize hospital costs and limit premium increases.
• Take on administrative waste and drug company profits.
  Strengthen our health care workforce through training and education support, so no one in a rural town waits months for basic care.

Grow What’s Good

“We’ve got good farm land, good people, and good business here. Montpelier just keeps making it harder.”

The Northeast Kingdom already has what matters: working farms, small businesses, beautiful land, and people who know how to get things done. I want state policy that builds on those strengths instead of tearing down what works.

As your representative, I will:

• Stand by this year’s repeal of Tier 3 and the road rule, and oppose efforts to bring back rules that put huge areas of rural land and ordinary driveways under Act 250 review.
• Keep reforming Act 250 so the process is clear, fair, and fast, with communities keeping a real say, while protecting the land and water we love.
• Reduce taxes on farm succession so families can pass the farm to the next generation.
• Create a Buy Vermont program for state and state-funded construction, and require written findings on whether Vermont firms were asked and could have done the work.
• Keep expanding broadband across the Northeast Kingdom so families can live here and work in any career.
• Support apprenticeships, career and technical education, and partnerships that connect young people with local employers.

Communities Speaking for Themselves

“Decisions about our town get made by legislators who’ve never been here. A legislator asked – ‘Waterford, that’s near Waterbury, right?’”

The people closest to our communities usually know them best. I believe the best answers are built from the community up, and I support rural Vermonters organizing and speaking for themselves.

As your representative, I will:

• Require host-town approval before the state acquires land in a community.
• Require a rural burden review and small-town cost test before the state imposes new mandates on towns.
• Schedule working-lands testimony outside the workday, with guaranteed remote access, so farmers and working people can actually be heard.
• Seat a Working Vermonters and Small Business Advisory Council with a legal charge to advise the Legislature.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

“Around here, when someone’s in trouble, you don’t ask how they voted. You just show up.”

Anyone can fall on hard times. A child shouldn’t go hungry because a parent lost a job. Someone facing addiction, mental illness, or domestic violence should get help before a crisis becomes a tragedy.

I will:

• Support the local organizations and grassroots efforts that already do this work well.
• Demand that public money is accountable and actually reaches the people who need it.

I helped found Rural Community Transportation and led Vermont’s Office of Economic Opportunity. I know what works on the ground.

Your Rights and Freedoms

“I just want to be left alone to live my life, and I want the same for my neighbors.”

Our rights are fundamental to who we are as Vermonters: free speech, freedom of religion, privacy, due process, and protection from unlawful search and seizure.

I will:

• Support PR-4, because equal treatment under the law shouldn’t depend on who you are.
• Defend every Vermonter’s right to a real voice in our democracy, without being drowned out by corporations and special interests.