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By Guy Page
The worker bees of the State House advocacy world are hard at working on solving the housing crisis – or, in some cases, helping their own cause while solving the housing crisis.
For example, the newly-formed Let’s Build Homes held a press conference Tuesday in the Cedar Creek Room to announce support for building 30,000 new homes by 2029. Organizer and press event headliner Miro Weinberger, developer and former mayor of Burlington (where he was fairly successful building new housing, compared to elsewhere) leads a coalition of the willing. But some reporters were wondering, how will they?
One answer: LBH advocates already working in the State House for coalition members plan to advise the Act 250 reform-created Land Use Review Board where and how to open up Vermont to Act 250 exemptions. Among the new Land Use Review Board responsibilities is transitioning Act 250 to location-based jurisdiction and creating new areas of Act 250 permit exemption.
Other advocates – for example, public transportation supporters – would link permitting to access to public transportation. Bad idea, says an advocate for builders: requiring access to bus routes (already in decline, even in suburban Chittenden County) would severely limit housing construction locations.
Overheard: Vermonters drinking less
Through the wonder of tech inventor Tom Evslin’s fabulous new website Goldendomevt.com, anyone can now poke their virtual noses into committee meetings and listen and read at will. This morning Wendy Knight, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Liquor and Lottery, told Senate Economic Development Committee that Vermonters are drinking less alcohol – but smoking more pot.
“We are actually projecting for FY ‘25 a one percent decline. Some of the reasons why people are consuming less alcohol, inflation is part of it, legalized cannabis, states that have legalized cannabis. People are choosing to avail themselves of legal cannabis products and not alcohol,” Knight said.
Those darn young folks are drinking less and toking/gummying more, Knight said.
“The younger demographic is choosing not to drink, not to drink as much. And so those are some trends that are impacting the consumption and the sale of alcohol.”
New bills: school consolidation, safe injection site repeal, and Human Rights Commission bills
The latest three bills to be introduced into the Vermont House are:
H.39, repeal of authorization of overdose prevention centers – sponsored by Rep. Eric Maguire (R-Rutland) and many other Republicans.
H.38, adding new positions to the Human Rights Commission – Rep. Kevin Christie (D-Hartford) and about two dozen other Democrat and/or Progressive legislators.
H.37, consolidation of Vermont’s school districts to align with career and technical education service regions – Rep. Jim Harrison (R-Chittenden).
Click here for all bills introduced in both House and Senate so far this year.
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Categories: State House Spotlight
Maybe they should put Cannabis under the same strictures as they do alcohol, rake in the revenue.
Weed products are taxed at a higher rate than alcohol in Vermont.
Vermonters are drinking less because of the cost of beer! $9 pints of beer plus 10% tax!
Everyone should check out the new Goldendomevt.com website – Thank you, Tom Elsvin. It is amazing and offers a window of accountability Vermonters have needed.
Think of how many laws we have on the books because Boomers couldn’t use booze properly during their lives. The kids noticed and switched over to weed so they wouldn’t act like their moron parents. Much safer and less addicting.
Chris – have a go at “Tell Your Children” by Alex Berenson. He wrote for the NYT, so he should pass muster with you.
I have a formerly close relative who has gone off the rails. He used pot brownies to “control his anxiety”. Now he’s diagnosed with advanced dimentia.
Tyler,
Even worse… the commie politicians love weed. But only for others’ kids. It makes you not care about anything. Everything is funny and futile because you can get dopamine hits artificially from weed. Why would anyone bother working to get real, long lasting dopamine injections that come from healthy relationships, a good career and self esteem if you are introduced to a shortcut early in life?
One of my best friends from college took to weed 40+ years ago. It was funny and cool in the college years. But then reality hit. He could never take anything seriously so he never got his life together. Of course everyone who knew him said “dude, this is not good”. But he just brushed us off and got new friends. He lost everything to it.
He killed himself at 28 years old after he lost his so called new stoner friends. Of course he didn’t depend on his new friends to do it. No. He went home to his aging parents to off himself. Cos his new “friends” were useless stoners too.
The sin taxes don’t go away – they just legalize more sins to tax. Why do you think they want to legalize prostitution and broaden the definition of illicit drugs? No matter how one self medicates, the State will get a piece of the action, literally and figuratively.
But, but, but your leftie CDC proclaims right on its own website that it is indeed NOT safe at all & is addictive.
No need for faux articles from stoner presses either – the CDC & the American Academy of Pediatrics (VT, no less) have, amongst virtually all credible U.S. medical organizations, professed in writing and presented in person to the VT legislature:
Marijuana is:
1.) A hallucinogen & impairs brain function
2.) Is addictive
3.) Causes Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome
4.) Causes declines in I.Q. levels (evidenced by a number of posters on here occasionally)
5.) Linked to Higher degrees of heart, stroke, & lung diseases
Just for starters. Enjoy!
Just a prophylactic reply to what shall undoubtably be forthcoming in a feeble attempt to try to disprove the dangerous, toxic, and life-altering effects of marijuana use………Therefore, as it were during Covid19:
THE CDC HAS SPOKEN!
HEIL!
Tyler, I read that book years ago. Berenson blocked me on Twitter in 2019 because he can’t actually defend his claims. If you look him up, he is actually a failed sci-fi writer who switched to right-wing grifting because its easier for someone like him with limited talents. Looking at some of the responses, guess who the target audience is.
I’m not going to argue that weed is less harmful than alcohol because there’s nothing to argue. I just wanted to touch a nerve and acknowledge Melissa is completely correct. Our economy is so far gone the only innovations left is to legalize vices.
Our economy is so far gone the only innovations left is to legalize vices.
Prophetic……amazingly great insight. Well said, very well said.
Alex Berenson is now little more than a fear pusher. He uses his pen to stroke the interests and insecurities of those stuck in the 24 hour news cycle.
The lower consumption numbers could be that people are drinking less beer/cider and drinking more liquor…and buying it more in New Hampshire. The increased weed sales aren’t necessarily to Vermont residents either, as New Hampshire has no retail sales and they come here to buy. Would be interesting to compare these figures among all the New England states.
Maybe the commissioner missed the basics of simple economics and the price differential across the river in NH.
When I lived in Washington DC, DC had a very high liquor consumption because DC was cheaper than VA or MD. Everyone shopped in DC.
It’s called basic economics 101.
Look how micro is lined up at the building trough, special group, special permitting, the affordable housing scam goes in steroids.
too bad nobody will own anything and they will import the tenants, because “the Vermonters aren’t raising families”, due to Montpelier oppression, and you’ll be replaced and also asked to subsidize this charade!
It looks like it will get much worse before it gets better, more inside deals for migrants, but not those ho live here. Kind of a kick in the pants since we’ve made it near impossible for 40+ years.
Why is Vermont government getting involved with housing. Let the contractors build and let the people get mortgages. And let supply and demanded lead the way! But if the gov. does it the houses will be subsidized and the taxpayers will be paying for these houses so people can get a hand out. The incentive is gone to work hard and buy your home. Typical socialism that nums the people!
Our family has been trying to get this very appoint across for two years or so on VDC now. But even some GOP’ers fall prey to its allure by buying into the falsehood that either they or their family members will “benefit” from this housing, or it just appears so “humane”. IT IS NOT! IT IS COMMUNIST DRIVEN!
It is, IN FACT:
Housing designed, as the Obama/Biden leftist administration mandated:
1.) To increase “DIVERSE” and “EQUITABLE” Housing
2.) To provide Housing For the new HOMELESS & ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT & Drug addicted populations
3.) To Have middle income VT residents Subsidizing the Housing For those who should NOT be homeowners to begin with without altering their lifestyle “choices”!
This is Housing fit for CHINA, NOT the USA!
WARNING:
STOP SUPPORTING this push for government-built Housing!!!!!!!
Joan the grifters are making serious bank on this charade, did you see that Miro is going to be part of the 20,000 new homes to be built…..surely rent, because you can’t be a serf if you own.
Affordable Housing is a Marxist tool to destroy the middle-class. VT is a government-run state, it is not pro-business. The agenda for VT seems to be for a Tourist Destination catering to the wealthy with serfs living in dwelling quarters serving their needs. Most of the serfs will most likely be imported along with anyone left who could not move away. The 30% by 2030 Plan and 50% by 2050 Plan will also decrease any buildable land for anyone, besides the wealthy & connected, to buy and build a private home. Also Act 250 is doing the job of completing the Marxist Plan by limiting construction of dwellings to urban areas, having no privacy or even ownership. Maybe a serf could get lucky and be housed in a new 15 minute town/city. What American people want is their own single family home in a setting of their choosing. To afford a private home, you must have a decent paying job. VT is continuing to be quite the opposite of what the American people want. Wonder what will happen to their Marxist Plan as the coming months ensue? Without money, things tend to dry up pretty fast.
No matter what you think of drugs and their effects, major Vermont employers across the state have had to stop doing drug testing, because Vermonters and those who have moved here will not pass any drug testing, to which they cannot get employees with this restriction.
We have a serious drug and alcohol problem in our state, without question. Homelessness is 95% drugs and alcohol.
No talk about that from the senior leadership. Nope….nothing to see here.
Not to worry though, Neil. “Chris” knows full well it is instead the “Baby Boom” generation that was and is the cause of all of society’s troubles – and he has the solution! Use MORE drugs!
Neil, that because the root cause of homelessness is actually untreated mental illness that keeps them from holding down employment. Drug use is a symptom, not a cause. It’s called the Oscar the Grouch syndrome. Was Oscar born a grouch or did he become a grouch because he lives in a can?
Well, some truth to what you say Chris. Life creates many problems and challenges for everyone, how does one deal with it? Are we giving our people a proper education, wisdom to deal with the situation. Are we also giving people hope? Are we grateful for what we have? These last two are more important than people realize.
Our education system is promoting envy and strife, protest, you are oppressed, which leads to hopelessness and despair.
So, then you spiral down mentally and literally, mental health issue or not, you will have a mental health issue on this track of action and thought.
There is always, always much to be grateful for, only then is one able to better their situation. Our society is promoting legal drug use via prescription as the answer and the other drug users are promising the same, but with “community” and a chance to make a profit. Both are horrendous lies and traps.
Drugs are not the answer, they are a major problem, legal and illegal. Two different drug dealers, but both drug dealers, both liars 99% of the time.
There are timeless truths to get people through difficulties. There are easy fixes to make life a bit easier in Vermont too. Our current administration in Montpelier wants nothing to do with either, they don’t have money and power going down this road and that is their currency. TGBTG
Why am I not seeing comments questioning th need for 20,000 new housing units? Estimating conservatively three people per unit that would be 60,000 people moving into new housing. Where are they all coming from (and why)? How many will be self supporting?
Housing crisis? I look all over Chittenden County and see new housing going up everywhere. The problem is that developers can’t build housing that actually would be affordable. Construction costs prohibit that.
The impact of rich people from outside of Vermont purchasing a great number of homes to be held as “refuge” homes for ungodly inflated prices cannot and must not be ignored.
Sorry, what you don’t care for is called the: FREE MARKET. It is also called Capitalism. It is also referred to as reality in that within society people do not possess what another has nor what they have the capacity to have one day. It’s called: LIFE. And life is NOT “equitable” nor has it EVER been.
The PRICES reflect the MARKET in Vermont. In other locales in the USA prices are CONSIDERABLY higher. In others it is lower. Want it lower? Relocate. There’s Detroit & Chicago. Want it higher? There’s Long Island, NY where a 1400 square foot home can sell for a million – or in parts of California where a SINGLE-WIDE mobile home costs well OVER a million.
If one cannot accept this & how the USA has been functioning within a FREE market within a FREE Country, I’d suggest relocation to places such as Cuba, Venezuela, China, or North Korea where the government controls healthcare, housing, employment, salaries, your children, their propagandized “education”, your speech, your religion – and just everything else.
I’ll stay HERE and buy what we can afford, achieve the level of employment or profession that we are personally capable of, and take out a mortgage or loan if needed to buy a home or an auto in the manner Americans have been doing for a couple of centuries now.
NO more government meddling in the free market & NO more of my “subsidizing” other people’s homes!
NO government-controlled housing!!!
Otto, Kathleen is that came from money you’re talking about, that’s why you received an unhinged response.
Hey Vermonters get off the kool-aid and wake up!!
Such an unkind and unnecessary comment Joan.
What would Jesus do?
“Lets build Homes” is just another lobby group which will suck us all dry in the same way all the lobby groups do. They want your money to fill their own pockets and do minimal work at high cost.