Anne Watson, Montpelier, is running for reelection to the State Senate. This last session she was the vice chair of the Natural Resources and Energy Committee, and served on the Government Operations Committee. She said that fit her background well because she is a high school science and math teacher, and the former mayor of Montpelier.
"I am running because every day I work with high school students who are worried about their future, and I’m passionate about creating a future that is sustainable in every way for them -- environmentally, socially, and financially,” she explained.
Her top priorities going into next session are: Working to reduce property taxes for middle- and working-class Vermonters. She said she is hopeful that this session Vermont can tax second homes at a higher rate.
“If someone can afford to have a second home here, then they can afford to pay more in taxes,” she said.
BUILD MORE HOUSING
"So many of our state’s problems come back to the lack of housing availability, especially affordable housing for working families and those coming out of homelessness. I’m proud of the work I did last year to make the regulatory process easy for affordable housing, but more needs to be done, including prioritizing it in our budget,” she added.
CLIMATE ACTION AND RESILIENCE
"The effects of climate change are here, so we need to be both reducing our carbon emissions as well as transitioning our infrastructure to be ready for a hotter, wetter climate. This is going to take funding, which is one reason why I was proud to work on passing the climate superfund bill, which will make the world’s biggest oil companies pay for damage done to Vermonters as a result of their carbon pollution. I also worked on the Flood Safety Act, which will provide better protections for our wetlands and river corridors, both of which are crucial in the “new normal” of intense storms in Vermont. It also supported better dam safety, which will be increasingly important as we face more intense storms in the future,” she explained.
