By Guy Page

Today is Feedback Friday on Hot Off The Press at 11:05 AM, hosted by yours truly. You can listen at AM 550, FM 96.1, and wdevradio.com. No guests, no agendas, just open lines for you to call in to 802-244-1777 and express your comments and questions on Vermont’s Town Meeting of the Air.

I’m fine with wherever the callers want to bring the conversation. But if you’re looking for some possible talking points….. Here are a few ideas culled from this week’s Hot Off The Press and Vermont Daily Chronicle.

What do you think about…….

legislators never getting a pay raise until they leave office for at least one term, and then successfully run for re-election? As suggested on HOTP yesterday by caller Jess from Middlesex, the General Assembly could vote raises for future legislators, but not for themselves. It sure would separate the proverbial wheat from the tares, the legislators who truly think Vermont would be better off with better paid legislators, and those who just want to exercise their unique powers to vote themselves a raise for the same amount of work.

Sure, the legislature’s bean counters would have to keep track of who gets paid what, but then so do most employers. 

Such a policy would also protect legislators – a little anyway – from outraged claims of privileged self-enrichment from their bosses – the voters – who enjoy no such privilege.

What do you think about…….

The Act 181-style tough-luck-for-the-cavedwellers scenario playing out with rural wetlands regulations?

As reported by Behind The Lines columnist Rob Roper in VDC today, the Legislative Council on Administrative Rules (LCAR) on April 30 will review wetlands regulations in which “urban communities not only get the benefit of less strict wetland rules, rural Vermont could see more land classified as wetland, which, of course, would be subject to more restricted use, and… you know the story.”

You heard that right. Not content with easing development in the political-majority urban areas but all-but-strangling it in the countryside, the Legislature and its paid rule-makers have concocted a plan to ease development in some URBAN wetland areas, but clamp down even further on similar development in RURAL areas. 

‘Rules for thee but not for me.’ Whodathunkit? 

And in case you were wondering who comprises the LCAR, here is the membership:

Rep. Trevor Squirrell, Chair – D, Jericho-Underhill in Chittenden County

Sen. Seth Bongartz – D, Bennington County

Rep. Mark Higley – R, Lowell

Rep. Carol Ode – D, Burlington

Rep. Larry Satcowitz – D, Randolph. Perhaps the legislature’s most ‘conservation-minded’ legislature after Rep. Amy Sheldon of Middlebury.

Sen. Scott Beck – R, Caledonia

Sen. Robert Plunkett – D, Bennington. First-termer

Sen. David Weeks – R, Rutland

And what do you think about…..

A State Ethics Commission that somehow can’t produce a 2026 election candidate signature form in time for campaign season? See Sam Douglass’s story coming soon today, and yesterday’s commentary by Paul Dame. 

Is this a state government 1) too incapable to produce a simple form or 2) or delaying the registered voter signature collection required by state law for Vermonters running for the Legislature and other state offices? Or something else?

And finally, at least for now, what do you think about….. 

Chittenden County prosecutor Sarah George refusing to prosecute six anti-ICE protesters arrested by state and local police for breaking state law outside a South Burlington home in March? Is this prudent prosecutorial discretion…. Or an ‘in-your-face, Trump’ declaration that Chittenden County is a Sanctuary County?

Give me a call today at 802-244-1777.  – Guy Page