[B]ENNINGTON — In his campaign for a Bennington 2-1 House seat, Chris Bates envisions a key role for the outdoors in boosting the area’s economy.
That makes sense, because Bates is a small business owner in the industry and is a longtime host of radio and local television shows related to the outdoors. Today, he owns Outdoor Secrets Unwrapped: Trout Fishing Adventures, a fishing guide service, and has two local cable TV shows — one devoted to the outdoors and a second focusing on local and state political issues.
Logically enough, Bates refers to himself on his Facebook campaign page as “The Fishin’ Politician.”
The candidate, who is seeking the Democratic Party nomination for one of two House seats in the 2-1 district, also cited environmental protection, especially concerning access to clean drinking water; and a need for the state to boost Southern Vermont economically and to regulate marijuana like alcohol to realize additional tax revenue.
“I really love this state, and coming from the Midwest you don’t see there what you see here,” said Bates, who moved here from the Davenport, Iowa, area six years ago. “This is beautiful, beautiful land to me. And being an outdoors guy, I was just, ‘how beautiful is this?'”
But in terms of the local economy, Bates said he found the southern part of Vermont to be hurting compared to points north.
“I want to run because after being here, I’ve noticed that Vermont is built on small businesses,” Bates said. “And when you go north, you see all kinds of wonderful businesses, and then you come south of Rutland — I call it the desert. It is like, ‘where are the small businesses?’ When you come south you really don’t see it. You go up to Burlington, it’s a whole other world.”
Lawmakers “have to be able to work with the towns down here in the southern part of the state to generate a cash flow of some type,” Bates said. “Help them out with some type of grants; let them know what grants are available; let them know what it going on, so that they can get some funding to generate a stimulus here.”
He added, “We need to get some sort of stimulus; some sort of grant money needs to be spent down here.”
In pursuit of that goal, he said, “I’m one of those guys; I’m not going to take no. You can’t take no for an answer. And if you are told no, then you have to come back to your drawing board and figure out how to make them say yes.”
Bates said he sees marijuana legalization as an opportunity to boost the economy that is not happening under the current state legislation. The question, he said, is “where is that going and how are we going to capitalize on that for the state of Vermont? Are we going to make money on it, are we just going to leave it recreational? Are we going to just let other states run us over like a steamroller?”
Concerning the environment, Bates said he would focus on finishing the response to PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) contamination of groundwater and wells around two former ChemFab Corp. factories.
“I’m a big time angler; I love fishing,” he said. “I go fishing probably every day. And then I see this PFOA thing which really bothers me. I think everybody should have clean drinking water, especially in our Bennington 2-1. We need to fix this. It’s still not fixed, so we need to have a strong voice in the House in 2-1. We don’t want excuses; just come up with the money.”
Vermont environmental officials and the Attorney General’s Office have been in negotiations with Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, the company identified as the responsible party for the PFOA contamination, over funding to provide clean drinking water to affected properties. The firm agreed last year to pay $20 million to extend municipal water lines to about half the homes with contaminated wells, while talks continue concerning homes roughly to the east of Route 7A.
He said of public school education and the Vermont Board of Education’s efforts to consolidated school districts: “I tend to agree to combine some of the schools for the simple fact that we are losing population here in Vermont. … I believe it would help them out.”
The outdoors industry
Bates advocates greater efforts to expand the outdoor recreation industry, which he said already accounts for about $5.5 billion in consumer spending annually.
“I’ve learned a lot about the outdoors and how to make money in the outdoors industry, and I think that here in Vermont it can keep going,” he said. “We can make even more in the outdoors if we have the ability to keep it going for small businesses.”
To that end, he would encourage small pop-up stores throughout the southern part of the state, catering to people who fish, hunt, hike, ski or take part in other outdoor activities.
“This area is known for its trout fishing, known for its black bear hunting,” Bates said. “People could capitalize on a small store outside of downtown, a home-based business. I would absolutely encourage those.”
Concerning his own fishing guide business, he said Bennington has “some of the best trout fishing in the state. There are some great fishing spots from Paper Mill bridge down to the New York border.”
Bates, 58, grew up in Illinois and moved to the Davenport area in the 1980s. He worked in several towns in that area doing radio and television shows related to the outdoors and moved to Bennington in 2012.
“I’m a regular guy, I don’t have a college education,” Bates said. “I’m just a regular guy and I want to give this a try. I was always told, if you want to make a change, go make a change. Don’t sit there and complain about it; do something about it. That’s kind of how I’ve lived my whole life.”
Also running for seats in the Bennington 2-1 district are incumbent Democrat Rep. Timothy Corcoran II and Republican Kevin Hoyt. Rep. Rachael Fields, D-Bennington, is not seeking re-election.
