Editor’s note: Sterling College in Craftsbury held a forum for the gubernatorial candidates on June 17. The event was moderated by Jon Margolis, a longtime Chicago Tribune political reporter and columnist who now writes for his own online publication: The Vermont News Guy. Two of the candidates in the five-way Democratic primary, Matt Dunne and Deb Markowitz were unable to attend. Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, the Republican candidate, did not make an appearance.
Margolis: I’m going to start with a couple of semi-parochial questions, and by semi-parochial I mean they are especially but not exclusively particular to the Northeast Kingdom.
So here’s the first one.
Vermont is a relatively prosperous state. We have a low poverty rate and even lower child poverty rate except for up here. In Orleans County, 19.3 percent of everyone under 18 lives in poverty and in Essex, it’s 23.8 percent. Most of the economic development plans we hear from candidates and others have to do with green jobs, health care jobs, high tech jobs. All good jobs, but they all require a college education.
Is there anything in your economic policy, your job programs that will help rural Vermont high school graduates who don’t have the wherewithal … to go to college but would like to stay here and earn a decent living?
Margolis: Another question that has some peculiar importance to the Northeast Kingdom. This question will first go to Susan Bartlett who sponsored a bill to save a famous moose, whose nickname I will not reveal. I don’t want to get into the details of the situation but one aspect of the legislation that was passed and I believe everyone here voted for it, has created a concern for wildlife officials and not just in Vermont. The law didn’t just save this moose. It transferred the ownership of the moose and 200 white-tailed deer living inside the impoundment up here in Irasburg, transferred to title of those animals to the owner of the land and that’s a violation of the public trust doctrine, which goes back to about the Magna Carta, which holds that all animals belong to all the citizens of the state. Again, without rehashing the particulars of this case, would each of you as governor uphold the public trust doctrine in the future and will you support officials who are trying to enforce the laws regarding wild animals?
Margolis: Sen. Racine you’ve had a good couple of weeks you’ve gotten the endorsements of union organizations and that gives you a big advantage in the primary, but in the general election, the republicans are sure to accuse you of being in the pockets of big spending liberal Democratic constituencies. They’ll say your hands will be tied when it comes to the kind of budget cuts that may be needed. It’ll sort of provide the ammunition they need. The question is, how would you fight back against that line of attack? And then I’d like to hear comments from the other two.
Margolis: Sens. Bartlett and Racine do you call yourselves fiscal conservatives?
Margolis: From a Vermont perspective, we have pretty good schools. They’re also expensive and one of the reasons is we have one of the lowest teacher to pupil ratios in the country because we have a lot of small schools. One of the issues in the legislature was whether we should consolidate school districts. In general, how would you hold down the rising cost of public education without degrading the quality of our schools? And, specifically, do you think some sort of consolidation is necessary or don’t you think this per pupil ratio is really that big of a problem.
Audience question: What specifically would the three candidates do to improve health care in Vermont?
Sterling College President Will Wootton: Would you each give us one self-identified characteristic that you think will lend strength to your leadership and one characteristic you think you’re going to have to watch out for in the governorship?
