1. I am a Vermonter who went through the public school system (SBSD) and am a business school graduate at UVM. My district consists of people like me: working class, renting, current students/recent graduates, and longtime VT residents-- all of which I am.
2. My identity as a person of color, an immigrant, low income... I have personal experiences navigating VT from childhood to adulthood that are invaluable. Not many people of color come here, and not many stay for lack of supports. I am here to fight, because young people like me deserve a Vermont they can see a future in.
3. I am a labor organizer and member of two unions. I am a service worker, caregiver, and apprentice. I am deeply involved in community and mutual aid.
Education will continue to be expensive as long as healthcare is expensive. I want to push for single payer healthcare.
There are currently too many school districts with their own governing bodies. We duplicate overhead costs when we could be coordinating and sharing resources. I suggest auditing current education spending, as many resources have moved online and into subscription access models.
Minimum class sizes for all schools. It is unfair to our students to experience high cost per pupil at their small school, yet less robust offerings. The Brigham decision exists, but is hard to enforce. However, can still see a clear discrepancy in quality, which should not exist.
Housing is not an issue we can build our way out of.
While Burlington is experiencing a housing crisis, there are units that used to be occupied on spaces that have already been zoned, sitting vacant and derelict. Instead of re-zoning to build, we send a message to negligent multi-property owners/landlords– rehabilitate it, sell it at a fair market value, or it gets repossessed.
Building takes more time than renovating; there’s permits, environmental concerns, raw materials, labor, etc. The least affordable thing to do is to build more housing that is owned/managed privately, yet still requires subsidies from the govt in order for it to be affordable. Let’s fix these buildings up, make them affordable, then we talk about new building.
Candidate For Office
State Representative for Chittenden-16
I've lived in Burlington for more than 25 years, all of them as a renter, so I know firsthand what rising housing costs mean. I served seven years as Ward 2 School Commissioner on the Burlington School Board (2001-2008), where I worked to preserve neighborhood schools and secure a livable wage for school support staff, and co-sponsored a policy protecting transgender students years before the State of Vermont followed suit. I was twice named Outstanding School Commissioner by our local teachers' union chapter. Today I serve on the Church Street Marketplace Commission and the Ward 3 Neighborhood Planning Assembly. As an Independent, I'll judge every bill by one question: does it make Vermont more affordable for the people I represent?
Seven years on the Burlington School Board taught me how hard it is to balance what students need with what taxpayers can afford. I'd expand income-sensitized relief so seniors on fixed incomes aren't taxed out of their homes. I'd save money by sharing purchasing, transportation, technology and administration across districts, but I'm skeptical of forced consolidation at the expense of neighborhood and community schools. Expanding community mental health and substance use treatment would ease pressure on school budgets. And I'd protect what matters most: early literacy and math, good teachers and support staff, and career pathways.
The best way to protect Vermont's landscapes is to make it easier and cheaper to build homes in downtowns and village centers, so growth goes there by choice. I'd protect recent zoning reforms that allow more homes where people already live and make permitting faster and more predictable for code-compliant housing. I'd support more starter homes, condos and accessory apartments, plus first-time homebuyer help. Where landowners want to conserve their land, voluntary conservation programs should be there for them. In Burlington, I'd push UVM to house more of its students, so homes return to working families, and I'd help weatherize older rentals to cut heating bills.
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