PUTNEY — Jobs, a balanced budget, health care for all, improved telecommunications, cleaner water, green energy investments, open government, safer roads, agriculture investments, our first two-year capital bill, improvements in prisons/corrections, consumer protections, and workers rights all highlight the just-concluded 2011 session of your Vermont Legislature.
Your citizen legislators took on the challenges that the Great Recession continues to visit on Vermonters and helped move us forward into the future. In our short 16-week session, we accomplished more in this session than in any other in recent history.
Back in January, a lot of questions were put before us. Would health care reform be possible? Would our state be able withstand the pressure from out-of-state interests looking to boost profits by taking advantage of Vermonters? Would Vermont finally be able to make progress on wireless and broadband access and lose our reputation as the “Can-You-Hear-Me-Now State”? Would we be effective with the same party controlling both chambers of the Legislature and the Governor's office?
The answer to all is a resounding yes!
Yes, there were honest disagreements, but we worked out and resolved those differences.
Our governor, Peter Shumlin, when he testified before a Congressional committee last month, reminded us all that the “Vermont Way” is working together – and that doing so is much more productive and serves the people better. He also reminded Wisconsin's confrontational Gov. Scott Walker, as he handed him a jug of Vermont maple syrup, that “you catch more flies with maple sugar than vinegar.”
Indeed.
As anyone who sings knows, it's not everyone singing the same note that creates harmony. It's different notes that complement one another, creating a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
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From these headline issues, down to the more basic issues affecting us as an aging population, Vermont took on leadership that can show its citizens and the nation the way to progress.
We took a projected budget gap of $176 million and balanced the budget, without draconian cuts to vital services and without the rancor that's run wild in other states.
In the House Human Services Committee, the very real issue of palliative care is affecting more and more of us. Many of us are helping parents, friends, or family members transitioning into the last stage of life.
A greater awareness of palliative care, pain management, and advanced directives can make life - and the dying process - a much more human and humane experience. The Palliative Care Bill encourages us to have those discussions, and access to more and better services, sooner rather than later.
Thousands and thousands of Vermonters have no health insurance, or limited access to health care, even while paying large sums of money to insurance companies.
Our first step toward universal coverage will address costs and increase positive outcomes. We can save money by getting people to care providers in a timely manner, as well as by seeing that health care dollars being spent on health care, not on billing and brokers' fees.
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On the energy front, once again Vermonters saw how our interests are best served by Vermonters, not out-of-state interests. As the recent vote by the board members of the Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC) illustrated, Vermonters don't do business the way people do in Louisiana. We want straight up, common-sense interactions based on mutual respect.
In March, the VEC board contemplated a long-term energy deal with Entergy, and the board vote was tied. VEC decided to revisit the vote the next month.
Meanwhile, Entergy put out a press release stating the company had reached an agreement with VEC. Once again, Entergy was playing loose with the facts.
The next bit of news was Entergy's filing of a civil suit against the state of Vermont.
Then, company officials made their presentation to the VEC board in April.
All those considerations let the VEC board see better who they were dealing with. Board members voted 9-1 not ever to do business with Entergy again.
In the realm of telecommunications, Vermonters know all too well the frustration of dropped cell calls and limited access to the high-speed Internet services that are economic drivers in most of the rest of the country.
After years of little or no action, we are now poised to move forward.
Gov. Shumlin has put together a team that will coordinate efforts between government and industry to use funding that has been sitting on the table for years. This money needs to be spent by 2014, or it will be lost to Vermonters.
The plan is challenging because of Vermont's sparse population and rugged terrain. What has worked in other areas of the world is a 4G LTE wireless network, and Vermont will be working to move past the days of dial-up and dropped calls every few miles.
I'll be posting a more comprehensive report on my website, with updates on everything from energy to the environment. Please feel free to check for that report at www.windham5.net.