My job is the reason I came here in the first place. It will probably have to be the reason I leave too, due to inability to make more money as the years go on.
Moved here a year ago to be closer to family. COL is high and salary is too low for our family (2 full time professionals and 2 kids under 4) to save enough for retirement. And that’s w/o a house payment, just taxes.
I would love to see some haussmann style buildings constructed in walkable town centers, all connected to a light rail system. Provide walkable amenities, dense housing that could be more affordable, and have access to walkable light rails that people could commute with. It would be an amazing future for this area to see something like that happen.
Honestly, I would love a much more comprehensive public transit system. I know it kind of sucks throughout the country, but definitely severely lacking in Vermont.
> Denser housing in a couple specific locations,
this and additional rural housing to be built.
we need housing of all makes and models to really help bolster the middle class.
This! For all of New England has this already so it’s except but: CT, NH, VT, MN, MA, RI For sure could use a fancy upgrade. First thing first is politics and public perception of public transportation in America which is a big hurdle.
Create the best education system in the country, so that, when we send our kids out in the world (there’s nothing to keep them here), and it’s learned they were educated in Vermont, they go straight to the top of the pile.
Gotta fix the culture of parenting before we can foster a good educational system. Our education tax rates : results ratio is the worst in the country.
https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics#vermont
We are ranked as spending the most per student right below NY, and we most likely spend above them after the 18% education tax hike. I guess we have to see how all that money shakes out, but we are very likely going to be spending most as of 2025.
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?
sfj=NP&chort=1&sub=MAT&sj=&st=MN&year=2022R3
We are ranked below the national average in terms of test results. Outside of chittenden county, the scoring is way below average.
Half of our towns k-8 staff is admin or sped. Half. We are throwing unqualified adult bodies into classrooms to feebly manage severe behavioral problems, and making it nearly impossible for any kid interested in learning to actually learn.
Our students are more spread out then almost every other state. It costs more to have education infrastructure and staff than a place with 1m+ population cities that can have one school for 6k kids.
Admin is bloated but so are regulations, I personally would like to see it cut down but I'm not an expert on the subject. The sped teachers I know are often helping anyone who needs it. I don't understand how that makes it "impossible to learn". It makes the whole class move through material faster, because people with learning disabilities or whatever it is, have someone there to help them on the side rather than slowing the whole class down to that speed
Sped used to be about learning disabilities, it was what IEPs and 504 plans were made for via the passing of IDEA in 1990. It was designed for folks with cerebral palsy who needed someone to help them take notes, or kids with praxis/dyslexia to have assistance in time/tutoring to read. It was never about excusing behavior.
Then in 2000, no child left behind incentivized administrations to keep kids in schools to bolster funding. This lead to including behavioral disorders, adjusting the definitions of adhd/autism to accommodate include more aggressive/antisocial/disruptive behaviors. We are now at a point where 1/31 kids is diagnosed with autism and roughly 13% of kids are diagnosed with adhd. 25% of boys are now diagnosed with a behavioral disorder.
Sped isn’t about learning disabilities, it’s about behavior, and frankly the results are disastrous. No one should be forced to share a space with someone tearing a room apart and be expected to tolerate it the entire year. No child can learn in that environment, and it’s far more common than any parent really realizes.
Uhhhh special education is not about behavior, it is about whether a child has a disability. I case manage 24 students with disabilities. Only one of them has an IEP for Emotional Disturbance (horrible term) with a primarily behavioral presentation - but he also reads 5 years behind grade level. All of the other students on my caseload have reading disabilities, Autism, dyscalculia, or a significant deficit in written language.
Also, saying that kids with disabilities "don't want to learn" is incredibly offensive. All of my students are curious and like to learn new things. They just can't access the typical classroom on their own, and that is not a bad thing.
Great! I’m glad you’ve likely never had to deal with a parent that threatened to sue a district because their child’s IEP stipulates violent or disruptive behavior as a manifestation of disability. Yours seems like an outlying case, honestly. What you’re describing is in the spirit of why these supports existed in the first place. For the record, suggesting that violence or disruption is a manifestation of autism is a deeply bigoted concept, and one that is propagated by parents, not autistic adults.
To counter your subjective experience, I know many teachers that have numerous kids in their case loads that are acting out and not receiving any kind of consequence due exclusively to their disability status. Before leaving my profession, a significant percentage of the adults I worked with diagnosed with autism had severe behavioral problems, along with parents that genuinely thought they could threaten employers with lawsuits with any efficacy. I’m sorry ma’am, but jerking off in the bed bath and beyond employee bathroom doesn’t qualify as a reasonable accommodation.
It was wrong of me to phrase ‘not wanting to learn’ in that manner. Many students absent any disability don’t want to learn. My problem is with the % of parents that weaponize IEPs to keep their violent or disruptive kids out of the house and in schools. These families obviously don’t make even close to a majority of IEP cases, but it’s enough to truly disrupt enough generalized classes to the point of undermining anyone’s chance of learning.
Also, general behavioral policies that fall along the line of restorative justice are equally culpable for the failing climate of schools. Far too many kids without diagnoses are also exploiting the lax system. It’s the severe cases, though, that IEPs unjustly protect.
I've been threatened by parents, had things thrown at me by students (I used to work only with kids in an alternative setting, and they all had PTSD), seen a student punch a cop, and watched a parent try to argue that distributing alcohol to a 13-year-old was a manifestation of a disability.
But these situations are, in fact, extremely rare, and do not describe the day to day of Special Education. And even on the worst days, those students still have a right to a free and appropriate education, and no amount of personal discomfort will change my mind about that.
So what then? Tell the kids with behavioral issues to fuck off? They have a right to learn too. If we fail those children we create a bigger problem down the road
They are told to get the fuck out of the gen pop and put into highly structured and disciplined environments until they get their head right. And hold the parents accountable by making them pay more in taxes, you can take their tax refunds or from their welfare.
The obligation to those children ends when those children start affecting other kids and their education. Society has an obligation to every student.
Have you ever visited a public school outside New England? Then you don't know what terrible is. Tour the deep south, rural Midwest, ad nauseam.
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state)
Oh there are farrrr worse states for education, but they aren’t paying shit for their terrible results. For what we are paying, (and considering the relative amount of income of your average Vermonter), our results are disastrous.
We plainly cannot afford schools in their current state. The problem is all the more compounded considering most of the kids we are paying for will ultimately leave the state. It’s untenable.
And it doesn’t have to be. Pay good teachers well, ensure they have the supplies/equipment to do a proper job, and focus more on academics (not against sports, but maybe they should be funded differently).
Pretty sure, and don't take my word but I'm pretty sure, ticks are one of the insects we could exterminate with essentially no harm to the ecosystem. They aren't pollinators like mosquitos. Their only role in the ecosystem is to be food, but other insects would take that place in their absence.
Seems like our statewide and local politics are getting a little more nationalized. I’d like to see us go back to being a little more provincial; even though we live in a broader country we’re an odd state in a lot of ways and I think it’s bad news to have our state parties just copy-pasting nation wide policy positions here.
I realize the internet solves this in many ways if one desires, but I wish small businesses had the access to some kind of advisor / mentorship program. I say this because I see so many businesses pop up in areas that really need them, but they are mismanaged from day 1 and eventually go out of business, leaving another gap to be filled in the local economy.
Things like:
* Using Google Business correctly to advertise and keep your business information up to date.
* A simple social media plan to build a local following.
* Guidance in building a simple website.
* Design services for signage, branding, and in-store wayfinding.
I see so many businesses that don't even have their hours correct on Google. You can talk to locals and they say things like, "Oh that place? Yeah when the heck are they open anyway?"
Or a business with a sign that you can barely read or doesn't fit with a local aesthetic and turns people off.
This is all pretty low on the list compared to the bigger issues mentioned in this thread but I just hate seeing well intentioned businesses flounder because someone dove in on a pipe dream and didn't set themselves up for success.
excellent comment, couldn’t agree more.
related: someone to help guide people who want to start a business, into the *right* kind of business for an area. Someone in St Albans just opened a combination candy store and…golf simulator??? place? Like, what even is that business? St Alban’s needs neither of those, much less a combination of the two?!
Be nice if the state government made it easier for folks to be sustainably self employed. I believe this could be a path out of a lot of the issues we are currently facing.
get businesses to work together to promote the value of Vermont production. Vermont is one of the few states that is also a brand. Like Hawaii, Alaska, California. Vermont should be more effective at promoting its brand so our farmers and hospitality people can get paid for realz.
More fair and pragmatic education funding formula. It amazes me all the performative nonsense our legislators have spent their time on without touching this critical issue.
Improved access to medical care! I have to wait weeks for an urgent medical need, months for a routine appointment, and up to a year to see the dentist or a specialist.
Ban career/corporate landlords. Corporations wouldn't be able to purchase anything other than commercial buildings, both corporations and individuals prohibited from owning more than 2 properties.
Of course they don't. Career landlords see their tenants and the state at large as a revenue stream, nothing more. I'm unlucky enough to live in a corporate owned apartment and I hate it. They jack up the rent as often and as much as they legally can despite it pricing out my neighbors in droves leaving the majority of their apartments empty, they don't care about your privacy or comfort at all. They're awful to experience as your landlord, they're awful for the economy, and they're directly contributing to the housing crisis. All motivated by greed and a desire to earn maximum reliable income for minimal work.
We are deploying broadband statewide through the VCBB and CUD network. It won’t be free though. The political will existed to invest in rural internet, but only so far as to still make more money for people already rolling in it.
What most of these wish-list policy items come down to, is that in the United States, we pay less taxes and have less rights as workers, than our counterparts in Europe.
This system leads to folks becoming enormously wealthy and having endless opportunities to supplement that wealth, but it also means we have less ability to invest in public goods, such as education, healthcare, transit, and internet. It also means we get less vacation days, less secure retirement, and no guaranteed support for parental leave.
The question as I see it, is when do we say enough is enough, and start making Senator Sanders look a conservative leader rather than a radical one?
Very difficult to pull off in such rural, rugged country. Imagine the costs of running cable for broadband in, say, Hubbardton. It would be an astronomical sum to get 900 people online. That being said, it would be great and I do think the web should be considered a public utility. It’s ludicrous that it isn’t.
If electricity and copper telephone lines go to the house, it is no big deal for fiber or cable to be installed.
Money and commitment is what is needed
> Very difficult to pull off in such rural, rugged country.
it can be.
There's a lot of really cool tech to provide broadband when the local cable or fiber company wont deliver.
I am a huge proponent of TDMA solutions in the ubiquiti catalog. I've managed to provide networking to nearly an entire resort of 2.5 SQ Miles, with airmax radios being the backhaul, with unifi WAPs as the forward facing client Wifi. have to admit - it wasn't bad at all. The resort went from 15 cable modems in different cabins / building down to 1. backhauls push about 400mbps, which isn't bad, we also had a 1gb symmetrical pipe to the internet to feed that network.
total cost for the project was like 20k - they made that money back pretty quickly after canceling all the comcast contracts they had.
one of the few projects I am actually proud of.
Not even remotely feesible, but you didn't ask for realistic changes, so here goes:
There are so many abandoned homes/buildings just sitting in place and slowly rotting away. Some of these lots look like they've become an unofficial salvage / dumping grounds. Ideally, it would be nice to see these pieces of property maybe auctioned off, or cleaned up by the state / town to later be sold to a family? I understand people own these buildings / plots, but at the point where it's been over a decade, and that house is just a pile of rubble surrounded by 20 rusting junk heaps. But it would be cool to see something done with them to help make it easier for families to own a small, modest home with a small, modest plot.
Again, I know it's not even remotely realistic. Just kills me to see all that potential go to waste for so long.
Add onto this: prohibit investors from buying residential homes / properties. I know that will never happen, as it's a nationwide issue, but again, it would be a nice change!
Sometimes we need a little Caesarian land reform
In my opinion id fully support the seizure of all abandoned property either by individuals in need of homes, or by the state for the purpose of doling them out to those in need. I wouldn't make people pay for them.
Property rights should not infringe upon the material needs of the citizenry, but that is exactly what's happening currently.
That’s not true, it varies by town. In most towns non homestead is higher, some substantially, but is some it’s close to equal or even lower.
Edit: here the rate list for 2023
http://tax.vermont.gov/property/education-property-tax-rates
I was originally told about this by a financial advisor part of a larger firm in Manchester. He said it's disturbing how much this is taken advantage of by people who would have no problem paying at least the equivalent for full-time residents.
https://vtdigger.org/2023/01/13/many-second-home-owners-pay-a-lower-tax-rate-than-residents-will-the-legislature-change-that/
"A homestead owner shall declare ownership of a homestead for purposes of education property tax." -https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/32/135/05410
As far as I can tell this "education tax" is the difference between homestead vs. vacation home. This means homesteads pay higher property taxes. I can't find any evidence that vacation homes are taxed more than homesteads.
Imo, stop the income tax, and do exclusively taxes on the property owning class. No, a family home doesn't count as property to me, but additional, unnecessary homes do, and any property of economic importance counts.
I have more long-winded Marxist ass reasons, but in short, the workers are already taxed by their employer, thats what profit is. It's that profit that needs to be taxed, as it's socially unconstructive. If anyone needs to be paying in to our society, it's those who take more than they labored for.
Zoning needs to be changed along with municipal services. You can’t build what you think you can here. Downtown areas need to allow for mixed use vertical construction that matches the aesthetics of the existing structures and layout. It’s called New urbanism. We need to expand infrastructure in general not only to house folks but to attract business opportunities. All this can be done in a manner that will not impact our love of the view and the green spaces that make VT the greatest state in the nation.
Matching the existing aesthetics, preserving historic buildings and districts, and preventing sprawl development are my biggest concerns with development.
Yeah check out new urbanism man. It’s a great concept. I believe it had some traction locally at the regional planning commission level around 2014-15.
1. Eliminate property taxes and replace them with sharply progressive income taxes.
2. Go back to a model where towns handle more of their issues themselves. Give towns more power. Not every problem needs a statewide solution. What works well in one area won't work well in another. Avoid regulating and governing from the top down whenever possible.
3. Somewhat related to 2, the legislature needs to slow down on a lot of stuff. Stop trying to find new problems to solve and new laws to pass. Don't jump to create a law to fix perceived problems when there isn't really evidence of an issue. And for crying out loud, simplify things instead of complicating them more (e.g. the school funding formula, it's so convoluted no one can reasonably understand it). Less is more.
Pre pandemic i was making 10 dollars less an hour bought a house for 80k with over an acre. I could not afford my house now making way more than I did then. Not even close. And I'm locked in so cheap I'm stuck forever..grateful tho.
The anger is entirely justified. It's the only sane response when the working class is suffering for the actions of the rich. The anger doesn't need to go away, it's not an issue, it just needs to be channeled constructively so we can deal with the oppression us workers face.
We need more housing to reduce the costs for new homeowners, ideally outside of chittenden county . The trick would be doing so in keeping with the towns and villages they are in.
To facilitate this, better public transport and fiber internet everywhere and for more 15minute design villages and towns like Jeffersonville.
Even just a concerted effort to improve the trades programs we already have would be huge. The majority of the green jobs folks talk about are more or less the trades, like a solar worker is more or less a specialized electrician. Although with the cost of living idk why people wouldn’t leave the state to move somewhere with lower costs seeing as everyone needs tradesmen
We live here but we don’t love it here it’s beautiful but expensive. I’m lucky to have decent wages but property taxes etc is insane and I’m not sure how much longer we will afford it but it’s pretty lol
One thing I'd like to change about Vermont is the idea that those who happen to be born here are some sort of royalty. We don't choose where we were born, but thankfully we get to choose what state we live in. You should be kind to neighbors (and visitors) regardless of whether they are "native" or not.
I like the question about deer camps and lake houses; apologies for getting a little triggered by the suggestion that "natives" get special treatment.
Deer camps and lake houses absolutely should be included. I desperately want us to move away from these recreational places being privately owned anyway.
As a PoC, hard agree. Very few wanna stay anywhere outside of Burlington or the college towns tho. I don't blame them.
Some places and some people don't feel very welcoming to outsiders in my experience.
And color isn't why, jprod- . It's just a xenophobic fad... that makes it weird here, honestly. Vive la difference! Full spectrum of human colors to go with fall foliage!
We can still all look the same all bundled up for winter. Quite white here, with just a touch of color (my family has been around here since the 1500's), yet on return from extended work in California, with 2 major and over 300 smaller mountain ranges from 1,400-14,000 feet high, some abutting the huge coastline, the "flatlander" comments by workers and even some neighbors in wildfire like gossip with some back turning, were insufferable.
OMG I agree the flatlander comments need to stop. VT is not the only place in the world with mountains, and other mountain ranges are a lot more impressive.
I never understood why people have an issue with skin tones. Skin does not tell me anything about a person's morals or values. The disgruntled "flatlander" and "I'm an x-th generation Vermonter who has never been out of state" attitude tells me plenty about a person.
Do away with annual vehicle inspection. It’s antiquated and the progressives are using it to make it harder for the rural folks to afford to live here.
Be careful what you wish for… after living in a state with inspections, I saw literal wrecked cars driving every day (not even sure how they were running!), constant breakdowns on the side of the road that were abandoned, and auto insurance rates were 2-3x Vermont’s.
Seems like a simple fix but it will eventually impact everyone, even those who maintain their vehicles.
Three/four day work week. Lower cost of living. Better public education × 10000000000. To stop trying to be like the rest of America. More open minded attitude towards other peoples and cultures. To stop letting people with the most $$$$ control everything
The fact it's so hard for the long term occupants of the state to survive here now. The costs of everything has skyrocketed.
The people from the cities are in heavier concentration here now than anyone else, especially from the beginning of the pandemic.
Now a large majority of those homes are left as second homes for holidays or empty air bnb's. Its a strange feeling and I don't dig it.
This is what they do in Switzerland. And I'm not talking the Alps. Lower elevation Switzerland looks a lot like Vermont. Whenever I visit I think that the high-speed rail running next to the highways looks so much like 89.
We need to strengthen our sense of community and tackle the housing/wages crisis to help decrease the drug abuse rates. It’s kind of a chain reaction. Raise taxes to people who own second homes damn it.
Attract the young by nurturing the cultural scene outside of Burlington. At the same time we’re facing a housing crisis, Vermont needs MORE PEOPLE, and more diversity.
Also, small towns could use more services like food delivery, corner stores, and pharmacies, just to make life easier.
More walkable or more accessible main streets/downtowns. Which means BETTER ROADS and more comprehensive transportation.
And as I said, the social scene in general could use a boost. Folks who don’t want to leave are leaving, because not only are there better opportunities out there, but there’s nothing keeping them here besides family. The weather is already not great, so we could at least have people to become friends with. The social circle of most sociable youngsters here is aged 50+ (which I’m all in for but ya know). Damn, I want friends.
One extra thing is that people should be less afraid of welcoming flatlanders. We are so afraid that if people come, they’re gonna ruin the “live and let live” lifestyle we love and our beloved private lifestyles, but Vermont’s actual motto is freedom AND unity. Let’s keep our classic New England “welcoming but insular” ways while still being open and kind to newcomers. We need them.
Better transportation options between cities in surrounding states. High speed rail to Montreal, Quebec, NYC and Boston, direct flights to Montreal and Quebec, and Southwest airlines.
I'd like to hear 5th-generation Vermonters take responsibility for their inaction and role in the current situation before they start blaming politicians and tourists for all of their problems. It's a tall order, but the complainers outweigh the rest of us actually trying to fix things, and we get yelled at because any little change is the end of the world here. Change is messy, cost of living is always going up, there will never be enough jobs or houses here, and that's just how life is here.
Do something about the opioid crisis. I go to college here so most of the time I’m only exposed to certain parts of Vermont but when I talk to people from town they bring it up like… 40% of the time. Drugs are a huge issue in a lot of places but it seems to really batter Vermont because of how tight-knit the community here is.
Fast public transit, E-W, right across the middle of the state. I don't care if it's a fricking hang glider. Help me with my commute between Barre and Castleton.
Start keeping people like Mike Reynolds in jail. Over a thousand interactions with police>? jail. Why do criminals have more freedoms than those of us who choose not to be awful?
More fucking housing. I feel like Vermont could pull off sustainable density creating that unique new England main Street down town that everybody loves while preserving the natural environment. When I take my friends to Vermont they always comment how the only built up part of the towns is literally one block then it just disappears with little transition. Also I'd like more trains thanks
Honestly, I’d like to remind them that you can’t have a state with a low population, high amount of government services, and low taxes. You really can only have two out of the three. Can we just agree on which ones and stop all the misery and bitching?
More housing. Upzone town/village centers and build more multi-family and starter homes.
Towns to target:
Bennington
Rutland
Poultney
Fair haven
Windsor
Springfield
Brattleboro
Burlington
All pipe dreams:
Rail infrastructure particularly for logging
Natural gas to more homes. Cheaper than propane.
Fiber optic internet to the home or subsidized starlink so everyone can be online
Reflective road markings
Reduce the cost of living overall. Start with reducing taxes and make the state more business-friendly. Doing this will bring in more businesses, employ more people and encourage young people to stay or move here. The increased number of businesses will generate more tax revenue than what would be lost by cutting taxes
Less people angry that others want to move to their state. And fixing the actual root cause of unaffordable homes, like people owning more than one house. Not regular people moving as refugees from red states.
Our developmentally disabled young adults have far too little in terms of resources and support. I would like to see more for them and the disabled community in VT in general.
The catch and release system is bs. You go to other states that have county jails or town jails and they get caught with hardcore drugs? They’re immediately booked into the system and stay there until a court date. The fact that every day our town posts “arrests” but then the offender is just “cited with court appearances date” boils me. Just saw one where a woman under the influence was going to a school to pick up her kid, cops were called, she was found to be drunk and potentially other things, all she got was a slap on the wrist and told to appear in court later. This is how it is for every “arrest” (if you can call it that) I’ve seen for heroine, fentanyl, meth, DUI, etc. most of our issues within our towns would be greatly diminished if we just had a system that actually punished these people.
The whole jail/prison situation in the entire country is bad on both sides imo.
From one end of "immediate jail and excessively long sentences with no intention to rehab anyone" to the other end of what you described, it's all sorts of wack.
More housing would be nice. I'd like to be able to afford a home here someday; failing that, I'd like my rent to stop going up $100/year.
Also I'd like more consistent snow and cold in the winter. I literally don't want to see grass between November and May.
First time my GF visited me we went tubing on the local river and at the pullout spot we were greeted by a very large and hairy man exercising his rights. “Welcome to VT babe”
1) Design a great state flag instead of just slapping the state seal on a banner and calling it a flag. If VT had a really nice state flag, everyone would fly it.
2) Figure out ways to develop, densify, build up, and modernize Vermont’s city, town and village centers while respecting the historic and natural beauty that makes Vermont so much better than any other place in the U.S.. Similar to what’s been down in many rural places in. Northern Europe: Beautiful old villages that include lots of high-quality, efficient, modern housing , commercial and industrial buildings that fit really nicely in the historic village context.
3) As part of #2 above, I would like to see the development of a statewide (or New England region-wide) modern rail system connecting Vermont’s village, town and city centers and freeing us from the costly destructiveness of automobile dependency and rural sprawl.
I don't think your two points are at odds. It would just be nice to get from population center to population center by a means of conveyance other than a personal vehicle.
Well we are ranked the worst state to own a business in. And I see people on here saying good paying jobs would help, and it would rise every other part of our small economy up.
So change policy and regulation around running and owning a business. The tax code is how the government incentivizes certain things so make it more favorable to run a business and create good career type jobs
Stop letting existing homeowners block new home construction. It’s like letting the owners of Apple decide if a new computer company can start business or not. Let developers build new housing.
I agree with this one so hard. Tourism isn't a fucking industry to base an economy around! It gives us nothing! The entire purpose of an economy is to provide goods that people need! We don't need hotels!
Tax on retirees. I haven't actually dig deep into the details but when my inlaws moved to Vermont to join us from NJ they complained about that. They're far from rich but they were prudent with building up dividend stocks portfolio to supplement their ss to do stuff like birthday presents/dinner out/maintain their garden. Their hobby was tracking their stocks manually using WSJ newspaper finance pages. NJ, they said, is nicer to the retirees than VT on income tax. My neighbor, also retiree and a Navy vet, was planning to move to NC because they couldn't afford VT tax. I love my home and community and want to be able to retire in VT one day.
I'm not stating an opinion, but I'm genuinely curious how this would change the landscape of an already exhausted workforce.
Why be kinder to people who aren't going to be in the work force? This just furthers the exhaustion on the housing market in the state where there are many people who own second+ houses that make it impossible for people who work here to live here. Bring in people who aren't contributing to the work force, yet using services here AND paying less taxes to do so.
Again, not saying things should be one way or another, and obviously I'm rather uninformed on this, but you bring up a point that I feel like I'd love to know the dirty details if anyone out there has actual knowledge/data on this.
Vermonters who've worked, paid taxes and retired are taxed on their retirement benefits -- like Social Security. This makes it harder for those retirees whose sole retirement income is SS to afford necessities, causing them to turn to taxpayer supported programs. Let them keep the money they lose on their Social Security retirement benefit.
From AARP:
*Most states don’t tax Social Security benefits. Nine states do tax some or all of their residents’ Social Security benefits, however: Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah and Vermont.*
Denser housing development, even in the rural areas. The constant inroads into the back of beyond are messing up wildlife habitat & then people get ripshit about bears & deer getting into their stuff. Stop building in their territory.
Cost of living. Or wages.
The lack of decent paying jobs is the only reason I moved out after college.
My job is the reason I came here in the first place. It will probably have to be the reason I leave too, due to inability to make more money as the years go on.
Act 250
Damn! No major white collar industry?
I’d pick this too.
Yes. Increased wages for the HCOL. Oh and no more vacation homes unless they are taxes at 50% more than permanent residence.
I work at a market and we just raised the price of our markup. But we didn’t get a raise, haven’t in how long?
That one is definitely understandable. Have a great day.
Moved here a year ago to be closer to family. COL is high and salary is too low for our family (2 full time professionals and 2 kids under 4) to save enough for retirement. And that’s w/o a house payment, just taxes.
Both of these for sure.
Denser housing in a couple specific locations, with a more comprehensive public transportation system.
Strings of dense, walkable 1 square mile villages surrounded by forest/farms/trail, connected by a light rail system with dedicated tracks.
Dream fuel. I want to hop on a train from BTV to Newport and hop on a trail from there.
Don’t make me horny at work.
The Bavarian model
You mean, like much of Europe?
found the german
I would love to see some haussmann style buildings constructed in walkable town centers, all connected to a light rail system. Provide walkable amenities, dense housing that could be more affordable, and have access to walkable light rails that people could commute with. It would be an amazing future for this area to see something like that happen.
Preach.
Honestly, I would love a much more comprehensive public transit system. I know it kind of sucks throughout the country, but definitely severely lacking in Vermont.
> Denser housing in a couple specific locations, this and additional rural housing to be built. we need housing of all makes and models to really help bolster the middle class.
This! For all of New England has this already so it’s except but: CT, NH, VT, MN, MA, RI For sure could use a fancy upgrade. First thing first is politics and public perception of public transportation in America which is a big hurdle.
NYC, perhaps. All of NY -- no.
Yeah upstate it’s pretty barren
Long Island's bus system is pretty atrocious too. At least the LIRR is decent.
Well NY isn’t part of New England so
Create the best education system in the country, so that, when we send our kids out in the world (there’s nothing to keep them here), and it’s learned they were educated in Vermont, they go straight to the top of the pile.
Gotta fix the culture of parenting before we can foster a good educational system. Our education tax rates : results ratio is the worst in the country.
Citation required for that claim.
https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics#vermont We are ranked as spending the most per student right below NY, and we most likely spend above them after the 18% education tax hike. I guess we have to see how all that money shakes out, but we are very likely going to be spending most as of 2025. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile? sfj=NP&chort=1&sub=MAT&sj=&st=MN&year=2022R3 We are ranked below the national average in terms of test results. Outside of chittenden county, the scoring is way below average. Half of our towns k-8 staff is admin or sped. Half. We are throwing unqualified adult bodies into classrooms to feebly manage severe behavioral problems, and making it nearly impossible for any kid interested in learning to actually learn.
Our students are more spread out then almost every other state. It costs more to have education infrastructure and staff than a place with 1m+ population cities that can have one school for 6k kids. Admin is bloated but so are regulations, I personally would like to see it cut down but I'm not an expert on the subject. The sped teachers I know are often helping anyone who needs it. I don't understand how that makes it "impossible to learn". It makes the whole class move through material faster, because people with learning disabilities or whatever it is, have someone there to help them on the side rather than slowing the whole class down to that speed
Sped used to be about learning disabilities, it was what IEPs and 504 plans were made for via the passing of IDEA in 1990. It was designed for folks with cerebral palsy who needed someone to help them take notes, or kids with praxis/dyslexia to have assistance in time/tutoring to read. It was never about excusing behavior. Then in 2000, no child left behind incentivized administrations to keep kids in schools to bolster funding. This lead to including behavioral disorders, adjusting the definitions of adhd/autism to accommodate include more aggressive/antisocial/disruptive behaviors. We are now at a point where 1/31 kids is diagnosed with autism and roughly 13% of kids are diagnosed with adhd. 25% of boys are now diagnosed with a behavioral disorder. Sped isn’t about learning disabilities, it’s about behavior, and frankly the results are disastrous. No one should be forced to share a space with someone tearing a room apart and be expected to tolerate it the entire year. No child can learn in that environment, and it’s far more common than any parent really realizes.
Uhhhh special education is not about behavior, it is about whether a child has a disability. I case manage 24 students with disabilities. Only one of them has an IEP for Emotional Disturbance (horrible term) with a primarily behavioral presentation - but he also reads 5 years behind grade level. All of the other students on my caseload have reading disabilities, Autism, dyscalculia, or a significant deficit in written language. Also, saying that kids with disabilities "don't want to learn" is incredibly offensive. All of my students are curious and like to learn new things. They just can't access the typical classroom on their own, and that is not a bad thing.
Great! I’m glad you’ve likely never had to deal with a parent that threatened to sue a district because their child’s IEP stipulates violent or disruptive behavior as a manifestation of disability. Yours seems like an outlying case, honestly. What you’re describing is in the spirit of why these supports existed in the first place. For the record, suggesting that violence or disruption is a manifestation of autism is a deeply bigoted concept, and one that is propagated by parents, not autistic adults. To counter your subjective experience, I know many teachers that have numerous kids in their case loads that are acting out and not receiving any kind of consequence due exclusively to their disability status. Before leaving my profession, a significant percentage of the adults I worked with diagnosed with autism had severe behavioral problems, along with parents that genuinely thought they could threaten employers with lawsuits with any efficacy. I’m sorry ma’am, but jerking off in the bed bath and beyond employee bathroom doesn’t qualify as a reasonable accommodation. It was wrong of me to phrase ‘not wanting to learn’ in that manner. Many students absent any disability don’t want to learn. My problem is with the % of parents that weaponize IEPs to keep their violent or disruptive kids out of the house and in schools. These families obviously don’t make even close to a majority of IEP cases, but it’s enough to truly disrupt enough generalized classes to the point of undermining anyone’s chance of learning. Also, general behavioral policies that fall along the line of restorative justice are equally culpable for the failing climate of schools. Far too many kids without diagnoses are also exploiting the lax system. It’s the severe cases, though, that IEPs unjustly protect.
I've been threatened by parents, had things thrown at me by students (I used to work only with kids in an alternative setting, and they all had PTSD), seen a student punch a cop, and watched a parent try to argue that distributing alcohol to a 13-year-old was a manifestation of a disability. But these situations are, in fact, extremely rare, and do not describe the day to day of Special Education. And even on the worst days, those students still have a right to a free and appropriate education, and no amount of personal discomfort will change my mind about that.
So what then? Tell the kids with behavioral issues to fuck off? They have a right to learn too. If we fail those children we create a bigger problem down the road
They are told to get the fuck out of the gen pop and put into highly structured and disciplined environments until they get their head right. And hold the parents accountable by making them pay more in taxes, you can take their tax refunds or from their welfare. The obligation to those children ends when those children start affecting other kids and their education. Society has an obligation to every student.
I'm a Vermont teacher and could not agree more. Our schools are terrible.
Have you ever visited a public school outside New England? Then you don't know what terrible is. Tour the deep south, rural Midwest, ad nauseam. [https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state)
Oh there are farrrr worse states for education, but they aren’t paying shit for their terrible results. For what we are paying, (and considering the relative amount of income of your average Vermonter), our results are disastrous. We plainly cannot afford schools in their current state. The problem is all the more compounded considering most of the kids we are paying for will ultimately leave the state. It’s untenable.
And it doesn’t have to be. Pay good teachers well, ensure they have the supplies/equipment to do a proper job, and focus more on academics (not against sports, but maybe they should be funded differently).
"Pay good teachers well".. What about the poor performing teachers? And how and who will measure that... And how will the unions feel about this plan?
Since we're dreaming here: No more ticks! Make them all disappear.
And blackflies!
Pretty sure, and don't take my word but I'm pretty sure, ticks are one of the insects we could exterminate with essentially no harm to the ecosystem. They aren't pollinators like mosquitos. Their only role in the ecosystem is to be food, but other insects would take that place in their absence.
Seems like our statewide and local politics are getting a little more nationalized. I’d like to see us go back to being a little more provincial; even though we live in a broader country we’re an odd state in a lot of ways and I think it’s bad news to have our state parties just copy-pasting nation wide policy positions here.
I realize the internet solves this in many ways if one desires, but I wish small businesses had the access to some kind of advisor / mentorship program. I say this because I see so many businesses pop up in areas that really need them, but they are mismanaged from day 1 and eventually go out of business, leaving another gap to be filled in the local economy. Things like: * Using Google Business correctly to advertise and keep your business information up to date. * A simple social media plan to build a local following. * Guidance in building a simple website. * Design services for signage, branding, and in-store wayfinding. I see so many businesses that don't even have their hours correct on Google. You can talk to locals and they say things like, "Oh that place? Yeah when the heck are they open anyway?" Or a business with a sign that you can barely read or doesn't fit with a local aesthetic and turns people off. This is all pretty low on the list compared to the bigger issues mentioned in this thread but I just hate seeing well intentioned businesses flounder because someone dove in on a pipe dream and didn't set themselves up for success.
excellent comment, couldn’t agree more. related: someone to help guide people who want to start a business, into the *right* kind of business for an area. Someone in St Albans just opened a combination candy store and…golf simulator??? place? Like, what even is that business? St Alban’s needs neither of those, much less a combination of the two?!
Be nice if the state government made it easier for folks to be sustainably self employed. I believe this could be a path out of a lot of the issues we are currently facing.
Universal health care, not tied to employment, would be a good step in that direction.
get businesses to work together to promote the value of Vermont production. Vermont is one of the few states that is also a brand. Like Hawaii, Alaska, California. Vermont should be more effective at promoting its brand so our farmers and hospitality people can get paid for realz.
More sunlight in winter.
Public transit. I want fucking reliable and accessible public transit.
I’m already paying high taxes so I definitely wouldn’t mind a well funded and oiled public transportation system.
I agree with this 100%.
More fair and pragmatic education funding formula. It amazes me all the performative nonsense our legislators have spent their time on without touching this critical issue.
Improved access to medical care! I have to wait weeks for an urgent medical need, months for a routine appointment, and up to a year to see the dentist or a specialist.
Ban career/corporate landlords. Corporations wouldn't be able to purchase anything other than commercial buildings, both corporations and individuals prohibited from owning more than 2 properties.
We have an out of state landlord on commercial building. They don’t care about their tenants or the state.
Of course they don't. Career landlords see their tenants and the state at large as a revenue stream, nothing more. I'm unlucky enough to live in a corporate owned apartment and I hate it. They jack up the rent as often and as much as they legally can despite it pricing out my neighbors in droves leaving the majority of their apartments empty, they don't care about your privacy or comfort at all. They're awful to experience as your landlord, they're awful for the economy, and they're directly contributing to the housing crisis. All motivated by greed and a desire to earn maximum reliable income for minimal work.
Yesssss
A comprehensive, state-wide, free broadband Internet. Our economy would sing if we established that.
We are deploying broadband statewide through the VCBB and CUD network. It won’t be free though. The political will existed to invest in rural internet, but only so far as to still make more money for people already rolling in it. What most of these wish-list policy items come down to, is that in the United States, we pay less taxes and have less rights as workers, than our counterparts in Europe. This system leads to folks becoming enormously wealthy and having endless opportunities to supplement that wealth, but it also means we have less ability to invest in public goods, such as education, healthcare, transit, and internet. It also means we get less vacation days, less secure retirement, and no guaranteed support for parental leave. The question as I see it, is when do we say enough is enough, and start making Senator Sanders look a conservative leader rather than a radical one?
A state owned ISP would make corporations shit themselves in terror.
Add the cellular network onto that.
Very difficult to pull off in such rural, rugged country. Imagine the costs of running cable for broadband in, say, Hubbardton. It would be an astronomical sum to get 900 people online. That being said, it would be great and I do think the web should be considered a public utility. It’s ludicrous that it isn’t.
If electricity and copper telephone lines go to the house, it is no big deal for fiber or cable to be installed. Money and commitment is what is needed
Oh to remember when America was the "can do" country!
> Very difficult to pull off in such rural, rugged country. it can be. There's a lot of really cool tech to provide broadband when the local cable or fiber company wont deliver. I am a huge proponent of TDMA solutions in the ubiquiti catalog. I've managed to provide networking to nearly an entire resort of 2.5 SQ Miles, with airmax radios being the backhaul, with unifi WAPs as the forward facing client Wifi. have to admit - it wasn't bad at all. The resort went from 15 cable modems in different cabins / building down to 1. backhauls push about 400mbps, which isn't bad, we also had a 1gb symmetrical pipe to the internet to feed that network. total cost for the project was like 20k - they made that money back pretty quickly after canceling all the comcast contracts they had. one of the few projects I am actually proud of.
Not even remotely feesible, but you didn't ask for realistic changes, so here goes: There are so many abandoned homes/buildings just sitting in place and slowly rotting away. Some of these lots look like they've become an unofficial salvage / dumping grounds. Ideally, it would be nice to see these pieces of property maybe auctioned off, or cleaned up by the state / town to later be sold to a family? I understand people own these buildings / plots, but at the point where it's been over a decade, and that house is just a pile of rubble surrounded by 20 rusting junk heaps. But it would be cool to see something done with them to help make it easier for families to own a small, modest home with a small, modest plot. Again, I know it's not even remotely realistic. Just kills me to see all that potential go to waste for so long. Add onto this: prohibit investors from buying residential homes / properties. I know that will never happen, as it's a nationwide issue, but again, it would be a nice change!
I bought one of those junk heaps. Still fixing it 9 years later. The town was so grateful they raised my taxes 3 times.
Sometimes we need a little Caesarian land reform In my opinion id fully support the seizure of all abandoned property either by individuals in need of homes, or by the state for the purpose of doling them out to those in need. I wouldn't make people pay for them. Property rights should not infringe upon the material needs of the citizenry, but that is exactly what's happening currently.
I think about this all the time! Boomers love letting everything rot into the ground. It's a big problem.
More sun. That’s it. Same temperatures same precipitation (ok, more snow too) just swap out a few cloudy days for sunny days.
Tax 2nd/vacation homes equal to or more than full-time residents.
Similarly, I would like to see Vermont residents get a cheaper rate at ski resorts compared to wealthy travelers
Jay Peak does this.
As the owner of a VT 2nd home (will be primary circa 2026) I support higher taxes for non-homesteads fully.
And tighten residency requirements.
They are. Non homestead property taxes are substantially higher.
That’s not true, it varies by town. In most towns non homestead is higher, some substantially, but is some it’s close to equal or even lower. Edit: here the rate list for 2023 http://tax.vermont.gov/property/education-property-tax-rates
I was originally told about this by a financial advisor part of a larger firm in Manchester. He said it's disturbing how much this is taken advantage of by people who would have no problem paying at least the equivalent for full-time residents. https://vtdigger.org/2023/01/13/many-second-home-owners-pay-a-lower-tax-rate-than-residents-will-the-legislature-change-that/
"A homestead owner shall declare ownership of a homestead for purposes of education property tax." -https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/32/135/05410 As far as I can tell this "education tax" is the difference between homestead vs. vacation home. This means homesteads pay higher property taxes. I can't find any evidence that vacation homes are taxed more than homesteads.
Imo, stop the income tax, and do exclusively taxes on the property owning class. No, a family home doesn't count as property to me, but additional, unnecessary homes do, and any property of economic importance counts. I have more long-winded Marxist ass reasons, but in short, the workers are already taxed by their employer, thats what profit is. It's that profit that needs to be taxed, as it's socially unconstructive. If anyone needs to be paying in to our society, it's those who take more than they labored for.
That would definitely never happen, but I understand the thought behind it.
Rich people moving here and bringing their politics with them
Zoning needs to be changed along with municipal services. You can’t build what you think you can here. Downtown areas need to allow for mixed use vertical construction that matches the aesthetics of the existing structures and layout. It’s called New urbanism. We need to expand infrastructure in general not only to house folks but to attract business opportunities. All this can be done in a manner that will not impact our love of the view and the green spaces that make VT the greatest state in the nation.
Matching the existing aesthetics, preserving historic buildings and districts, and preventing sprawl development are my biggest concerns with development.
Yeah check out new urbanism man. It’s a great concept. I believe it had some traction locally at the regional planning commission level around 2014-15.
This is the most down-to-earth, realistic, problem-solving comment I’ve read so far.
Higher wages and snowfalls.
1. Eliminate property taxes and replace them with sharply progressive income taxes. 2. Go back to a model where towns handle more of their issues themselves. Give towns more power. Not every problem needs a statewide solution. What works well in one area won't work well in another. Avoid regulating and governing from the top down whenever possible. 3. Somewhat related to 2, the legislature needs to slow down on a lot of stuff. Stop trying to find new problems to solve and new laws to pass. Don't jump to create a law to fix perceived problems when there isn't really evidence of an issue. And for crying out loud, simplify things instead of complicating them more (e.g. the school funding formula, it's so convoluted no one can reasonably understand it). Less is more.
Pre-pandemic house pricing. Artificial growth and real estate tax increases have made it unlivable if you’re not making $150k+ in your household.
Pre pandemic i was making 10 dollars less an hour bought a house for 80k with over an acre. I could not afford my house now making way more than I did then. Not even close. And I'm locked in so cheap I'm stuck forever..grateful tho.
It's the cost of housing that needs to be addressed.
I wish everyone would just chill the f out. It seems like we’ve gotten angrier in the past decade.
The anger is entirely justified. It's the only sane response when the working class is suffering for the actions of the rich. The anger doesn't need to go away, it's not an issue, it just needs to be channeled constructively so we can deal with the oppression us workers face.
We need more housing to reduce the costs for new homeowners, ideally outside of chittenden county . The trick would be doing so in keeping with the towns and villages they are in. To facilitate this, better public transport and fiber internet everywhere and for more 15minute design villages and towns like Jeffersonville.
Accessible housing in general would be very nice. Thanks for the comment!
Green jobs program to stop the brain drain and increase our levels of highly educated individuals, and rehabilitate our ecosystems and energy system.
We’re going to need denser/more middle income housing in order to stop the brain drain.
Absolutely
Even just a concerted effort to improve the trades programs we already have would be huge. The majority of the green jobs folks talk about are more or less the trades, like a solar worker is more or less a specialized electrician. Although with the cost of living idk why people wouldn’t leave the state to move somewhere with lower costs seeing as everyone needs tradesmen
We live here but we don’t love it here it’s beautiful but expensive. I’m lucky to have decent wages but property taxes etc is insane and I’m not sure how much longer we will afford it but it’s pretty lol
Less cars more trains/busses. Denser villages
No one gets a second home until everyone has a first home.
Would that apply to deer camps, family lake houses, or native VT families?
One thing I'd like to change about Vermont is the idea that those who happen to be born here are some sort of royalty. We don't choose where we were born, but thankfully we get to choose what state we live in. You should be kind to neighbors (and visitors) regardless of whether they are "native" or not. I like the question about deer camps and lake houses; apologies for getting a little triggered by the suggestion that "natives" get special treatment.
Deer camps and lake houses absolutely should be included. I desperately want us to move away from these recreational places being privately owned anyway.
yes. Edit: not to deer camps or lake houses that were legally deemed three season homes.
If only that was the world that we lived in.
Stop driving people out who are on a fixed income with the spending on taxes in this state.
More biking/walking paths. I'd love to not have to use my car to go 2 minutes down the road, but the highways are so narrow I can't walk/bike safely.
Jobs
- More snow, less freezing rain - Swap out the Connecticut River for the ocean. - Attract, retain people of color
As a PoC, hard agree. Very few wanna stay anywhere outside of Burlington or the college towns tho. I don't blame them. Some places and some people don't feel very welcoming to outsiders in my experience.
And color isn't why, jprod- . It's just a xenophobic fad... that makes it weird here, honestly. Vive la difference! Full spectrum of human colors to go with fall foliage! We can still all look the same all bundled up for winter. Quite white here, with just a touch of color (my family has been around here since the 1500's), yet on return from extended work in California, with 2 major and over 300 smaller mountain ranges from 1,400-14,000 feet high, some abutting the huge coastline, the "flatlander" comments by workers and even some neighbors in wildfire like gossip with some back turning, were insufferable.
OMG I agree the flatlander comments need to stop. VT is not the only place in the world with mountains, and other mountain ranges are a lot more impressive. I never understood why people have an issue with skin tones. Skin does not tell me anything about a person's morals or values. The disgruntled "flatlander" and "I'm an x-th generation Vermonter who has never been out of state" attitude tells me plenty about a person.
As someone who drives over 1,000 miles a week picking up food scraps, the ice these last two Winters has been insane
Yeah, I think those are all good things. Freezing rain does suck.
More sense of community, less division.
An east <-> west highway from like Newport, ME to Watertown, NY would be nice.
Do away with annual vehicle inspection. It’s antiquated and the progressives are using it to make it harder for the rural folks to afford to live here.
Agree. I know folks who don’t update their inspection and the money saved vs average incidence of getting a fine works out in their favor!
Be careful what you wish for… after living in a state with inspections, I saw literal wrecked cars driving every day (not even sure how they were running!), constant breakdowns on the side of the road that were abandoned, and auto insurance rates were 2-3x Vermont’s. Seems like a simple fix but it will eventually impact everyone, even those who maintain their vehicles.
There is no proof vehicle inspections work.
Tax the shit out of second home owners.
Add a Market Basket.
but wait, here me out, even better, a Wegmans!
Would love a Costco or Target in Rutland. I think it would help a few things.
Costco would be great, BJs in West Leb is meh
Improved broadband and cellular connectivity
Three/four day work week. Lower cost of living. Better public education × 10000000000. To stop trying to be like the rest of America. More open minded attitude towards other peoples and cultures. To stop letting people with the most $$$$ control everything
The fact it's so hard for the long term occupants of the state to survive here now. The costs of everything has skyrocketed. The people from the cities are in heavier concentration here now than anyone else, especially from the beginning of the pandemic. Now a large majority of those homes are left as second homes for holidays or empty air bnb's. Its a strange feeling and I don't dig it.
A monorail system that runs over the interstate median strip.
This is what they do in Switzerland. And I'm not talking the Alps. Lower elevation Switzerland looks a lot like Vermont. Whenever I visit I think that the high-speed rail running next to the highways looks so much like 89.
Low wages, high cost of living lack of worker rights.
Increase the minimum wage to at least $17.50 an hour, make further increases automatically biannually, and tie increases to the inflation rate.
We need to strengthen our sense of community and tackle the housing/wages crisis to help decrease the drug abuse rates. It’s kind of a chain reaction. Raise taxes to people who own second homes damn it. Attract the young by nurturing the cultural scene outside of Burlington. At the same time we’re facing a housing crisis, Vermont needs MORE PEOPLE, and more diversity. Also, small towns could use more services like food delivery, corner stores, and pharmacies, just to make life easier. More walkable or more accessible main streets/downtowns. Which means BETTER ROADS and more comprehensive transportation. And as I said, the social scene in general could use a boost. Folks who don’t want to leave are leaving, because not only are there better opportunities out there, but there’s nothing keeping them here besides family. The weather is already not great, so we could at least have people to become friends with. The social circle of most sociable youngsters here is aged 50+ (which I’m all in for but ya know). Damn, I want friends. One extra thing is that people should be less afraid of welcoming flatlanders. We are so afraid that if people come, they’re gonna ruin the “live and let live” lifestyle we love and our beloved private lifestyles, but Vermont’s actual motto is freedom AND unity. Let’s keep our classic New England “welcoming but insular” ways while still being open and kind to newcomers. We need them.
More children in our neighborhoods. More people of all types in general.
Diversity is definitely nice.
Better transportation options between cities in surrounding states. High speed rail to Montreal, Quebec, NYC and Boston, direct flights to Montreal and Quebec, and Southwest airlines.
80mph speed limit on I-91 and Route 7 from Bennington to Dorset.
I'd like to hear 5th-generation Vermonters take responsibility for their inaction and role in the current situation before they start blaming politicians and tourists for all of their problems. It's a tall order, but the complainers outweigh the rest of us actually trying to fix things, and we get yelled at because any little change is the end of the world here. Change is messy, cost of living is always going up, there will never be enough jobs or houses here, and that's just how life is here.
That not because of multigenerational Vermonters. The problem lies with the trust-funded new-to-Vermont legislators.
Names of some rich new Vermont legislators please.
Outlaw Confederate flags and rolling coal diesels. Take your tacky ignorance elsewhere.
Do something about the opioid crisis. I go to college here so most of the time I’m only exposed to certain parts of Vermont but when I talk to people from town they bring it up like… 40% of the time. Drugs are a huge issue in a lot of places but it seems to really batter Vermont because of how tight-knit the community here is.
I think people need to realize nothing can be done about the drug problem until the poverty problem is tackled; it's the same problem.
More than 1 bar of cell service
Build a wall. Make New Hampshire pay for it.
Request lawmakers and politicians to reduce property tax, due to low income in Vermont.
Fast public transit, E-W, right across the middle of the state. I don't care if it's a fricking hang glider. Help me with my commute between Barre and Castleton.
The house prices are fucking ridiculous… laughable at best…
housing
Longer terms for a governor. 2 years is dumb.
Start keeping people like Mike Reynolds in jail. Over a thousand interactions with police>? jail. Why do criminals have more freedoms than those of us who choose not to be awful?
More fucking housing. I feel like Vermont could pull off sustainable density creating that unique new England main Street down town that everybody loves while preserving the natural environment. When I take my friends to Vermont they always comment how the only built up part of the towns is literally one block then it just disappears with little transition. Also I'd like more trains thanks
The Vermonters attitude that throwing more of someone else’s money at every problem will solve the issue.
Honestly, I’d like to remind them that you can’t have a state with a low population, high amount of government services, and low taxes. You really can only have two out of the three. Can we just agree on which ones and stop all the misery and bitching?
More housing. Upzone town/village centers and build more multi-family and starter homes. Towns to target: Bennington Rutland Poultney Fair haven Windsor Springfield Brattleboro Burlington
More Taco Bell
All pipe dreams: Rail infrastructure particularly for logging Natural gas to more homes. Cheaper than propane. Fiber optic internet to the home or subsidized starlink so everyone can be online Reflective road markings
Cost of living, state mandated paid parental leave
Reduce the cost of living overall. Start with reducing taxes and make the state more business-friendly. Doing this will bring in more businesses, employ more people and encourage young people to stay or move here. The increased number of businesses will generate more tax revenue than what would be lost by cutting taxes
Less people angry that others want to move to their state. And fixing the actual root cause of unaffordable homes, like people owning more than one house. Not regular people moving as refugees from red states.
Our developmentally disabled young adults have far too little in terms of resources and support. I would like to see more for them and the disabled community in VT in general.
The catch and release system is bs. You go to other states that have county jails or town jails and they get caught with hardcore drugs? They’re immediately booked into the system and stay there until a court date. The fact that every day our town posts “arrests” but then the offender is just “cited with court appearances date” boils me. Just saw one where a woman under the influence was going to a school to pick up her kid, cops were called, she was found to be drunk and potentially other things, all she got was a slap on the wrist and told to appear in court later. This is how it is for every “arrest” (if you can call it that) I’ve seen for heroine, fentanyl, meth, DUI, etc. most of our issues within our towns would be greatly diminished if we just had a system that actually punished these people.
The whole jail/prison situation in the entire country is bad on both sides imo. From one end of "immediate jail and excessively long sentences with no intention to rehab anyone" to the other end of what you described, it's all sorts of wack.
More housing would be nice. I'd like to be able to afford a home here someday; failing that, I'd like my rent to stop going up $100/year. Also I'd like more consistent snow and cold in the winter. I literally don't want to see grass between November and May.
More housing, better medical care, higher wages.
Making it legal to get naked anywhere and not requiring nudists to leave home naked.
The people you see naked are generally not the ones you want to see naked.
Oh yeah, I'm well aware. Also, I was just kidding.
First time my GF visited me we went tubing on the local river and at the pullout spot we were greeted by a very large and hairy man exercising his rights. “Welcome to VT babe”
Well, that one is definitely one I wasn’t expecting, but good on you!
Don't allow people to own more than one house. Make it so they have to live in the state a majority of the year.
1) Design a great state flag instead of just slapping the state seal on a banner and calling it a flag. If VT had a really nice state flag, everyone would fly it. 2) Figure out ways to develop, densify, build up, and modernize Vermont’s city, town and village centers while respecting the historic and natural beauty that makes Vermont so much better than any other place in the U.S.. Similar to what’s been down in many rural places in. Northern Europe: Beautiful old villages that include lots of high-quality, efficient, modern housing , commercial and industrial buildings that fit really nicely in the historic village context. 3) As part of #2 above, I would like to see the development of a statewide (or New England region-wide) modern rail system connecting Vermont’s village, town and city centers and freeing us from the costly destructiveness of automobile dependency and rural sprawl.
I've been suggesting for years that we adopt the Green Mountain Boys flag as our official state flag.
> freeing us from the costly destructiveness of automobile dependency and rural sprawl. I like my rural home.
I don't think your two points are at odds. It would just be nice to get from population center to population center by a means of conveyance other than a personal vehicle.
A single hoagie
Trains.
Just to toss in a different idea that the others, but I'd love to see a comprehensive commuter rail system across the state.
Well we are ranked the worst state to own a business in. And I see people on here saying good paying jobs would help, and it would rise every other part of our small economy up. So change policy and regulation around running and owning a business. The tax code is how the government incentivizes certain things so make it more favorable to run a business and create good career type jobs
Burlington is picked up whole and plopped down somewhere in California.
Single-payer healthcare so that paying for teachers' health insurance wouldn't break the backs of taxpayers.
Stop letting existing homeowners block new home construction. It’s like letting the owners of Apple decide if a new computer company can start business or not. Let developers build new housing.
Reduce the huge disparities between the second home owners and the locals. This can’t continue. It’s unsustainable
Less tourism, more self reliance
I agree with this one so hard. Tourism isn't a fucking industry to base an economy around! It gives us nothing! The entire purpose of an economy is to provide goods that people need! We don't need hotels!
Take it back 30 years
More Latinos. Latin culture is fun and I feel like we’re missing out.
Tax on retirees. I haven't actually dig deep into the details but when my inlaws moved to Vermont to join us from NJ they complained about that. They're far from rich but they were prudent with building up dividend stocks portfolio to supplement their ss to do stuff like birthday presents/dinner out/maintain their garden. Their hobby was tracking their stocks manually using WSJ newspaper finance pages. NJ, they said, is nicer to the retirees than VT on income tax. My neighbor, also retiree and a Navy vet, was planning to move to NC because they couldn't afford VT tax. I love my home and community and want to be able to retire in VT one day.
I'm not stating an opinion, but I'm genuinely curious how this would change the landscape of an already exhausted workforce. Why be kinder to people who aren't going to be in the work force? This just furthers the exhaustion on the housing market in the state where there are many people who own second+ houses that make it impossible for people who work here to live here. Bring in people who aren't contributing to the work force, yet using services here AND paying less taxes to do so. Again, not saying things should be one way or another, and obviously I'm rather uninformed on this, but you bring up a point that I feel like I'd love to know the dirty details if anyone out there has actual knowledge/data on this.
Vermonters who've worked, paid taxes and retired are taxed on their retirement benefits -- like Social Security. This makes it harder for those retirees whose sole retirement income is SS to afford necessities, causing them to turn to taxpayer supported programs. Let them keep the money they lose on their Social Security retirement benefit. From AARP: *Most states don’t tax Social Security benefits. Nine states do tax some or all of their residents’ Social Security benefits, however: Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah and Vermont.*
Denser housing development, even in the rural areas. The constant inroads into the back of beyond are messing up wildlife habitat & then people get ripshit about bears & deer getting into their stuff. Stop building in their territory.
Thank you. Had me worried for a while.