By Carol Hosford
I would like to thank my many supporters for your help and advice over
the time I served you in the Legislature. It was a very productive four
years.
I feel proud of the progress we made together on protecting our surface
waters from mercury and phosphorus, designating ground water as a
public trust, and passing smart growth legislation that encourages
compact development and discourages sprawl.
We passed legislation that supports group net metering opening the door
to communities that want to produce their own renewable energy, and
formed an entity that will help Vermonters save on fuel bills.
We passed legislation designed to contain education costs while
preserving our fine schools. We set in place a process to contain
special education costs in districts where spending appears to be
excessive (not ours!).
We asked the Department of Education to simplify special education
audits that have been so burdensome to special educators and business
managers and got rid of about 30 unnecessary mandates on the education
system.
We placed in statute state funding for 10 hours a week of voluntary
preschool education for 4-year-olds. It is interesting to note that the
Vermont Business Roundtable and many others around the country strongly
support preschool education as a business investment.
As the House representative on the Governor's Council for Building
Bright Futures, I spearheaded the development of a new assessment tool
to let us know how well our preschool education is preparing our
children for kindergarten.
These were all initiatives in which I was very much involved and in
which many of you offered advice. I was also happy to support the
formation of the Catamount Health System, which is a start toward
providing affordable health care for Vermonters. We also passed
measures to attract businesses to Vermont through creating L3C's and
digital corporations.
As a member of the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, I had
just begun listening to testimony on the radiological health
implications of changing the way we measure radiation emissions at
Vermont Yankee. The Legislature may have to decide this biennium
whether or not to recommission Yankee for another 20 years.
I wish Adam Greshin well in working on the many problems that will continue to face the state over the next two years.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve you as your state representative!
Outgoing two-term state Representative Carol Hosford-D lives in Waitsfield.
