Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rep. Jim Masland, of Thetford Center, a Democrat who represents the Windsor-Orange 2 district in the Vermont House of Representatives.
[S]everal weeks back, VTDigger published a commentary by Kevin Ellis in which he stated that when Vermonters rejected David Hall’s proposed NewVistas community they missed a great opportunity. Hall envisioned a largely self-sustaining community of some 20,000 people on 5,000 acres carved out of the townships of Sharon, Strafford, Tunbridge and Randolph. Hall believed this first NewVistas would become a model for many such communities spread throughout Vermont. Ellis stated that self-sustaining ecologically sound development is what Vermonters are yearning for. So why send David Hall packing?
The Valley News followed Ellis with an editorial suggesting that if Hall had approached towns’ folk openly instead of sending surrogates to quietly buy large tracts on his behalf, the local populace might have embraced him.
Both Ellis and the Valley News omitted one huge fact. David Hall, a devout Mormon, intended his utopian community to be laid out according to Joseph Smith’s Plat of Zion. More important, it would not be a municipality as we know it, but instead a corporation governed by 12 apostles chosen by Hall and his associates. Apostles would not be elected by the governed, and in fact residents would have little say in how their community would function, how the schools would be run or what would be taught. Each person would be required to surrender his/her worldly assets and most of their rights to direct the affairs of the community to the NewVistas corporation. Hall’s writings indicate that the corporate hierarchy would also direct business development and family counseling. Those who don’t fit in or object to NewVistas directives would be asked to leave.
Vermont has a long tradition of public participation and self-governance, whether in town, school or state government. To sweep that away would be antithetical to what it is to be a Vermonter, indeed an American.
At public meetings Hall seemed to recognize that getting an Act 250 permit for his plan might be quite a challenge but stated that once Vermonters came to embrace his concept, changing Act 250 to meet his needs wouldn’t be difficult. He further imagined that he might create a new township to encapsulate his community within its own jurisdiction and that that too would be supported by the Legislature.
Permitting is often a drawn-out process for many applicants. And getting the right balance between wide open public participation and more regimented decision-making has never been an easy task. In truth, Vermonters have struggled for decades to define the boundaries of public participation and find the right balance between too little (where out-of-state developers have their way) and too much (when NIMBYs drag out a worthy proposal for years adding hundreds of thousands to the cost). Either extreme increases cynicism and warps public perceptions about the regulatory process.
Clearly there is work to be done to get it right. But that’s no reason to discard public participation and self-governance as unnecessary clap-trap.
If Hall’s next pursuit is an environmentally self-sustaining community integrated into the community in which it is to be built, we should congratulate him and wish him well. However, if his project is to be a corporation devoid of self-governance run by 12 apostles chosen without regard to the desires and needs of the governed, we should not lament his moving on.
