[Editor's note: David Chase and his wife moved to Forestville four years ago after spending 20+ years in Vermont, a large portion of that time when Howard Dean was governor. I asked David, a Dean supporter, to tell us about life in Vermont under Dean.] -- Roger Karraker
The first of three parts.
By David Chase
I lived in Brattleboro, Vermont, most of my life. Brattleboro is a small town, about 12,000 people, and it's the third largest municipality in Vermont. Only Burlington and Rutland are larger. I mention this to give you some background not only about me but about the State of Vermont and why I think things work there as they do.
Vermont historically has been an agricultural state although there have been pockets of industry along some of the bigger rivers where the energy could be harnessed to run the mills. Vermonters tend to be independent and even private. On the other hand, they cherish the annual town meeting were the town and school officials are elected and the budgets are passed and everyone of age has a chance to say his piece. True democracy, you might say.
Brattleboro devised a representative town meeting which removed some of that democracy by one step but the town reps are a broad cross section of the community from lawyers and doctors to folks in subsidized housing. The advantage is that the town reps are much better informed on the issues at hand than people who simply come in once a year for the baked beans.
I was a town rep for several years. One year I ran for the board of Selectmen (read "supervisors" or "town council") but I lost. A month or so later I was appointed to the Town Planning Commission where I served 10 years, five of those years I was chairman. During that time we did a townwide survey about where people wanted the town to go, rewrote the Town Plan, the Zoning regulations, and the Subdivision Regulations, and adopted Flood Plain Zoning.
I must say that government didn't seem all that political to me in those days. There were the diehard Democrats and the diehard Republicans, of course, but it always seemed as if they agreed to disagree. It was all very civil. Perhaps it was underground and I never knew about it, but I never seemed to be part of it.
Government seemed accessible to me, too, especially after I was on the Planning Commission. One time I drove to Montpelier, the capital, and dropped in on Tim O'Connor, the Speaker of the Vermont House. He took me to lunch along with the Lieutenant Governor. Tim O'Connor was also from Brattleboro and he and his wife, Martha, were both town meeting reps. We enjoyed watching them cancel each other's votes at town meeting.
In Vermont, the Governor and Lieutenant Governor run independently. It's a common thing for one to be a Democrat and the other a Republican. This was the case with then Governor Richard Snelling, a dug in Republican, and Howard Dean, a Democrat, who was elected as his Lieutenant Governor. I have no idea how they got along privately, but in public there was a sense that each acknowledged the other and accepted that and both did their best for the people of Vermont.
Richard Snelling collapsed and died at home while he was cleaning his pool. Vermont has no Governor's mansion. The Governor may be given a housing allowance if his home is in a town of some distance, but that's it. Snelling and Dean both lived about half an hour from Montpelier. You can bet Howard Dean will never forget the day the State Trooper showed up at Dr. Dean's office while he was seeing patients to give him the news.
During the next couple months Howard Dean had to shut down his practice and not only fulfill the commitments he'd taken on as Lieutenant Governor, but also the ones obligated by Snelling.
The next election, Barbara Snelling, Gov. Snelling's widow ran on the Republican ticket. Howard Dean won hands down. In all he won five terms as the Governor of Vermont, so he must have been doing something right. I don't remember who his lieutenant governors were.
Nor did I hear much about Mrs. Dean. She had her medical practice and he was the Governor. It made perfect sense to us.
Tomorrow: Part two of David Chase's story of Vermont under Howard Dean.
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