Press Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: Christopher Bray, cbray@sover.net, 802.453.3444
ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH FOLLOWS
Christopher Bray, state representative from New Haven announced Feb. 2 that he is running for Lieutenant Governor.
In his announcement, Bray described his “Renew Vermont” program, an economic development program designed to create jobs and revitalize our farms, forests, and food industries, which Bray called “Vermont’s original green jobs and an essential part of our heritage.”
Bray noted that many other aspects of Vermont’s broader culture and economy depend on and benefit from these industries. These beneficiaries include programs in health, nutrition, and renewable energy, as well as tourism, recreation, and traditions such as hunting and fishing. In addition, forests provide many environmental benefits, ranging from clean air to clean water.
Taken together, Bray said that these industries also support most other aspects of the Vermont economy because most do business with local banks, builders, manufacturers, and other local service providers.
Bray is seeking the Lieutenant Governor’s office because he sees it as a way to work full-time, year round on these issues, which he sees as essential to Vermont’s past and future. “There is almost no aspect of life in Vermont,” said Bray, “that isn’t connected to the world of our farms and forests. They have been the foundation of the state’s traditions, culture, and economy for over two centuries.”
“Growing just 10% more of our own food here in Vermont,” said Bray, “would add approximately $500 million to the Vermont economy, and that is just one of the opportunities we have here.”
Bray and his family live on an 82-acre farm in New Haven.
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Bray’s Lt Governor Campaign Announcement Speech
2 February 2010, Cedar Creek Room, Vermont State House
Good morning, and thank you for coming today. It’s heartwarming to see friends, colleagues, and family here today. I’m Chris Bray of New Haven, Vermont, in Addison County.
My ancestors emigrated from Ireland and became Americans right here in the great state of Vermont. In 1854, the Brays arrived in North Danville, where they bought land and began farming.
And though six generations of Brays have lived here since that time, I would actually like to start with a story that takes place outside of Vermont. Time away from home often helps us better see and appreciate just what we have here.
For reasons of work and my father’s military service, my family moved out of state by the time I was born. I grew up in New Britain, CT, a factory town, whose motto proudly proclaimed it to be “Hardware City of the World.”
Downtown, the vast Landers, Frary and Clark factory complex occupied 42 acres. The facility was surrounded by wrought iron fences that ran for blocks, and it included huge brick buildings, gateways, arches, turrets, its own railway system, and more. It was in its own way spectacular—a monument to Yankee ingenuity and industry.
And then, when I was 10 years old, the unthinkable happened: it closed. Entirely. And in the years that followed one company after another shut down, and their factories were abandoned.
My town had been a vibrant city, with well-kept parks, museums, libraries, great public schools, a busy Main Street full of shops, an opera house, and much more. But most of these things dried up and withered as the town lost over 10,000 people in less than a decade.
This once proud city lost its heart and soul, and it did so as it lost its work.
As a child I wanted to stop this, to fix it. I remember asking if we couldn’t use the buildings for something else.
“No,” the adults said. “That’s just the way it goes. The jobs have moved south.”
In short, I watched a city die.
Perhaps some of you have seen and felt something similar in your own town or community.
During these same years my family often came back to Vermont. I noticed the farms. And there were a lot of them.
In fact, when I was born, there were 11,000 dairy farms in Vermont.
Today there are just over 1,000.
And I feel once again that I am seeing an industry die. Witnessing a way of life disappearing. But this time, I am not willing to stand by and watch it pass away.
I am not willing to accept “That’s just the way it goes. The jobs have moved on.”
I am not willing to accept the end of a CULTURE and WAY OF LIFE that has been an essential part of Vermont for the last 200 years.
And so today, I am announcing my candidacy for Lt Governor of the state of Vermont.
If elected, I will faithfully serve my oath of office:
I will preside over the Vermont Senate.
I will serve on the Senate Committee on Committees.
I will stand ready should anything happen to the Governor.
And I will also, using the unique position of the Lt Governor’s office, work full-time, year-round, with my Legislative colleagues, with the new Administration, and with Vermonters all across the state—to help us renew, rebuild, and revitalize our state.
This Renewed Vermont will help create a vibrant future for all Vermonters—a future with better economic opportunity and with the genuine security of being part of healthy community, regardless of whether that community is large or small, urban or rural.
This is in no way a sentimental or nostalgic view of life here in VT. It is a hard and realistic one, based on necessity and the need to adapt in order to not just to survive, but to thrive.
Vermonters have always been innovators. Vermonter Samuel Hopkins received the first US patent ever issued, and other Vermonters went on to invent the electric motor, the elevator, the modern plow, the internal combustion engine, the steam boat, and many more items—up to and including recent work in wind, energy, and computer technologies. A Renewed Vermont is in perfect keeping with our long history of ingenuity.
The work I have done in the last four years—in the form of the Agriculture Viability Bill, the Farm to Plate bill, the Biomass Bill, and more—is helping build this brighter future for Vermont.
I have seen and I know that by working together creatively and respectfully, we can, and will, do better.
We will keep our farms and forests productive.
We will produce more of our own food, making it safer and more nutritious, and in so doing we will support better health, because good food is the foundation of good health.
We will produce more of our own energy using renewable resources, including wind, water, solar, and biomass from our farms and forests.
We will keep our environment healthy so that Vermonters will be able to continue to walk, hike, fish, hunt, and recreate in our forests, rivers and lakes.
We will continue to be one of the world’s top tourism destinations by maintaining our unique mix of green spaces, rural towns, and small, friendly cities.
And as all these aspects of our farm, food, forestry, health, energy, recreation, and tourism industries do better, so will all the other businesses that do business with them, such as banking, building, manufacturing, and others.
And last, as we continue to enhance our quality of life here in Vermont, THAT QUALITY itself will serve as one of the strongest reasons that new businesses will actively CHOOSE to locate in our state.
None of this, however, will happen quickly. This is a long-term view, a real solution, not quick-fix politics. This thoughtful approach will quietly yield results in the next year, in the next decade, and for decades to come.
I can clearly see this vibrant future, a Renewed Vermont, and I ask you today to join me in working for this vision of a healthier, more vital, and more enduring state. I stand before you ready to serve as your next Lt Governor, and committed to building a better Vermont for all Vermonters.
Thank you for your time and attention. Now let’s get to work.
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