Mid-May marked the adjournment of the 2021-22 Vermont General Assembly biennium, a two-year session marked by the impact of Covid-19 on how we worked and what we were able to accomplish.
When Covid-19 shut down in-person legislating in March 2020, it took a few weeks to get our remote way of operating up and running. During that time, it seemed the state, the country, the world was uncharted waters, including financially. Locally, so many of our constituents lost jobs and had no idea where to turn. My own business, Vermont Move Management, lost all of its booked work overnight with no restart in sight. As aid programs came online, slowly and with many hiccups, many of us in the Legislature wanted to start helping folks in our communities directly, assisting them with navigating brand new government systems for unemployment and new and other forms of assistance.
For many of us, this is how we focused our work during the summer and fall of 2020, and the calls and emails started flowing in immediately from all over the state. The situation was pretty dire for many as the state scrambled to keep up with exponentially higher demand on a decades old computer system. It was frustrating to see our state struggle to help people, but it was also some of the most gratifying work we did as pandemic unemployment checks started to flow and slowly the burden eased on people.
That was two years ago, and while so much still seems unpredictable, so much has changed. Billions of federal dollars have since flowed into Vermont, mostly in direct aid to people and businesses, but the Legislature carefully appropriated $1.2 billion of this federal assistance in a range of areas that we have come to see as critical now: housing, health care, workforce development, child care, business assistance, and so much more. Meanwhile the Legislature in 2022 returned to in-person governing after spending the 2021 session at home and on Zoom, and while Covid-19 had a strong run among members, we successfully passed important legislation that benefits so many Vermonters.
With that in mind, I look forward to asking the voters of Cornwall, Goshen, Leicester, Ripton and Salisbury to support me once again by voting for me in the 2022 Democratic Primary on Aug. 9, and, if successful, in the November General Election.
For more details about me and the the issues ahead, click on “About Peter” or “Issues” on the tool bar above.
“Peter is a strong voice advocating for our rural communities in Montpelier, especially complex areas such as education finance, broadband expansion, affordable housing and rural economic development.”
-Speaker of the House Jill Krowinski
