The following testimony from Retta Dunlap, Woodbury, VT was submitted to Senate Natural Resources Committee. 

By Retta Dunlap

I am going to speak from my heart, from my very soul on Act 181 and S.325.

My husband of 48 years has Alzheimer’s. I have become both husband and wife in our duties in our home as I care for him through his illness. We are on a fixed income and as I took over the budgeting, I find that we have enough to live on for now, but I also realize that his care may become expensive.

We own 12 acres of land, and I thought, oh, I could sell half of it. Someone could buy it and build a home, only to find out that the Vermont State Legislature has passed something that has allowed a rulemaking committee to put my land in a Tier Three category that would require an Act 250 permit to build a house on that property, thus making it unsellable.

I consider this a theft of our value — the state stealing land from two lowly landowners, for that’s what we surely must be. It is my understanding that the software used to designate these corridors was never intended for making policy and yet here we are. In fact, those who developed this software warned it should not be used for policy.

No one has come to look at my land to see if this made any sense. My husband and I are part of the land, from the land, just like the animals are. We have deer and moose and foxes who cross this land. They don’t need a connection corridor to protect them; they already have freedom. I’ve seen moose swimming in the lake that I live next to, which, oddly enough, is not in the corridor. And yet I am the one losing independence forced on me by my own Legislature.

I object to this theft, and the Vermont State Legislature should protect the people, and the people protect the land. I honor the animals who live here. I don’t shoo them away nor do I shoot them. But I live here too. I exist on this planet and I’m heartbroken that my own state has now made my life harder with no care for me.

From what I see from the Vermont Legislature, you don’t care about people. You care about land that’s not yours — animals that do not belong to you, that walk freely wherever they choose to go.

So yes, I object to Act 181. I object to S.325. I object to the Legislature obfuscating. No to the Legislature taking any more from the people of Vermont. The regulations here are horrendous. Businesses can’t function. Housing can’t be built because of the regulations the Vermont State Legislature has instituted in this state.

And I am tearful. I know that what I have written will be ignored, and I know it will get stuck in a file somewhere. I know there are people just like me. And I know there are people thinking, we’ll just hold our breath while reading this, for it will go away. I will continue to heartfully speak out.

If you’ve read this far, thank you.