Charlotte charter, education bill and saving democracy

It’s a weird time in the State House. We’re making all these laws and working on a budget and honestly, we don’t know how much money we’re going to have from the federal government with each passing day. But we’re carrying on as if everything is going to be all right, because of course, it is. We’ll figure it out.

I have a few things to address this week: the Charlotte town charter, the education bill, how are we going to prevent ourselves from losing democracy and an event coming up. In no particular order of importance, of course.

First, the charter. We passed the proposed charter on Town Meeting Day. It essentially asks the legislature to allow Charlotte to exempt ourselves from a portion of a law that was passed last year. The HOMES act was a large bill that addressed different ways in which creating housing could be made easier. One of those changes was allowing the governing bodies of municipalities — in our case, the selectboard — to make changes to land-use regulations without a townwide vote.

In years past, we had these big documents that included a pile of changes, everything from food-truck policies to changing a comma. We then voted on all of the changes as a town via Australian ballot. This change in the HOMES act removes the townwide vote requirement. Except in Charlotte, we voted that we don’t want the selectboard to make those changes; we all want to make the changes. Or, at least a majority of us do.

The charter process (I know I’ve really gotten overly enthusiastic about Dillon’s Rule here before so I won’t do it again, but believe me, the passion is still here) means that the legislature has to approve any charters or charter changes. My committee, as it happens, approves all of the charter bills that come through the House. I’m presenting the town charter bill introduction this Friday, April 18, at 1 p.m. in my committee, and then we’ll take testimony in the coming weeks. If you’re interested in weighing in on the record, be in touch and I’ll get you on the agenda.

We passed H.454, the big education bill, out of the house last week. Sometimes we pass bills and we know nothing, or little, is going to change during its time in the Senate. Like, maybe the bill goes to summer camp and grows an inch but is basically the same when it comes back. This bill, which took a ton of work and hours of floor debate, will come back from summer camp with a whittling hobby, a tattoo done with a ballpoint pen by its bunkmate, a new hair color, and it will reject its childhood nickname. It’ll still be the same camper, just really different.

The goal of this bill is to do just a couple little things like completely rehaul our education system across the state and completely rehaul the way we pay for public education. So, as you can imagine, it’s not a quick fix, nor should it be. At the moment, we don’t know what it will look like, but as always, whenever anyone asks for my opinion, I tell them my most important priority is the kids.

Americans — people with green cards, people who are legally allowed to be here — are being arrested in our state, or being arrested and brought to our state, because the president’s administration doesn’t like their politics. This should scare the bejesus out of every single one of us. If you’re not a person who gets involved or tries to stay out of politics or would rather spend your spare time watching television, I urge you to, when you finish the latest season of The White Lotus, of course, do something. It can be little. Email me or your senators or Becca and Bernie and Peter. Call the governor and ask him to stop putting his party over our people. Or it can be bigger: Go to a protest, write an op-ed for the paper, hold an informal gathering in your yard around the firepit to talk with your neighbors and friends about action you can take. This is serious. No matter if you’ve lived here for two weeks or two generations, you’re a Vermonter. We do stuff.

Finally, our Attorney General Charity Clark is joining me at the Charlotte Town Hall on April 29 at 6:30 p.m. She’s going to discuss her work to protect the rule of law and Vermont’s sovereignty. As of writing this, she’s already filed nine lawsuits against the Trump administration, but there are surely more to come every day. It’s going to be interesting and entertaining and hopeful, and I’d love to see you all there.

You can email me or 917-887-8231. Our state motto is Freedom and Unity, and I really think now is the time for us, no matter what our disagreements are, to see how much we all believe in both of those things.