Notes from Montpelier
by Rep. Bill Frank

            I have had many people ask me if we are working on anything besides the budget and the Vermont Yankee power plant.  Yes we are but first let me talk about those two items.  My committee, House Human Services, has done a thorough review of the budgets of the departments in the Agency of Human Services, except for corrections.  Most of this review consisted of hearing about reductions or elimination of programs and services to Vermonters.  These reductions will have a profound effect on the lives of many seniors, children, individuals with a variety of disabilities, and families with low incomes. To make matters worse, many of the people affected by cuts in one department will be negatively impacted by cuts in other departments as well. These are the Vermonters with the least capacity to deal with fewer services and supports.  As you can guess this is a stressful but necessary exercise. If we consider a program too important to eliminate we must then find another place to make a reduction.  After we complete our review we will give our recommendations to the appropriations committee to use in building the budget.

            The Health Department is sending a daily update regarding the investigation of tritium detected in monitoring wells at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station to all legislators.  This information and updated lab results are also posted on the “Tritium Investigation” page at the Vermont Department of Health’s website http://healthvermont.gov/enviro/rad/yankee/tritium.aspx.

I wrote in this column on April 2, 2009 that with the lack of information Vermont Yankee had given me and all legislators “I could not vote for re-licensing if the vote was today.”  If I had any trust in VY, I have lost it.  VY’s owners Entergy desire to spin VY off to a new company, their data is completely unreliable, they proposed an unacceptable poor rate structure and the constantly increasing cost for decommissioning has me reiterating that I can not vote for re-licensing if the vote was today.

            The first bill voted out of my committee this year, H.507, will modify the permanent guardianship law for children.  Every child should have a stable, permanent home. This bill will help children who come into the foster care system find permanent homes with a grandparent or other relative. It will allow federal funding to be used to provide financial support for a child when a member of the extended family takes permanent guardianship of that child.

            Students from Mrs. Randall, Mr. Driscoll and Mr. Botzojorns Jericho Elementary fourth grade classes visited the State House during the last two weeks.  They had a tour of the State House, the Vermont Historical Society Museum and were introduced when the House was in session, receiving a rousing round of applause.  After lunch Rep. Till and I met with them and answered many of their questions and they shared there ideas for new laws.  One idea was “Anyone that burns plastic will have to plant $2,000 worth of trees”. 

Mrs. Bloch and Mrs. Lavallee-Walker's 3rd and 4th Grade classes at Underhill ID School invited me to their classroom as a follow-up to their visit to the State House on January 12.  I answered many questions and helped them understand the path a bill takes from an idea to being enacted into law.  I hope they enjoyed my visit as much as I did.