Rep. Mulvaney-Stanak Calls for Unifying Needs of State vs. Using a Urban-Rural Divide (Podcast)

Excerpt from "The Deeper Dig: Leveling the funding field for small towns" by Riley Robinson and Sarah Mearhoff, VTDigger, January 13, 2023.

Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak discussed the rural-urban divide framing by Governor Scott in his State of the State speech in VTDigger's podcast. Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, P/D-Burlington: ... the way that he set up this dichotomy was quite unfair and unresponsive to also the needs of more urban areas, which are largely Chittenden County — but also could be Barre and Rutland and Springfield — because there are definitely economic struggles happening. Maybe in a different degree. But in my neighborhood, in the Old North End of Burlington, people are really struggling to keep up with rents.

This is not a competition. I think that kind of gets into that place of polarizing parts of the states against each other, which is unnecessary. We're all in a housing crisis. We're all in an economic crisis, where cost of living is impacting everyone.

I think it sort of has folks double down on that there are really stark differences, when they're not, between the Northeast Kingdom and central Vermont or parts of southern Vermont.