Dear Constituents –

This week began with the final Legislative Breakfast of the session for Franklin Co legislators and our constituents. Along with members of the public, we welcomed students from Richford High School who engaged with us on topics of importance to them, such as forgivable student loans and nicotine use.

In the House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee, we attended a bill signing in Governor Scott’s Ceremonial Office for H.154 (designating November as the Vermont Month of the Veteran). The office was packed with press, veterans groups, and legislators for this occasion. It was an especially significant event for the Committee, as we had passed this bill last biennium, only to see it languish on our Senate sister committee’s wall when the majority wasn’t interested in taking it up. We greatly appreciate the makeup of this session’s Senate Gov Ops Committee and their willingness to move this forward. Although this is a small gesture recognizing Vermont’s veterans, the signing was done with a sense of pride and honor.

In other Committee business, we continued to work on H.72 (municipal ordinances governing nuisance properties containing salvage and scrap); H. 109 (municipal ordinances governing maintenance of properties within designated downtown districts); S.23 (use of synthetic media in elections); H.23 (requirements for State-funded grants); a group of municipal charters: H.506 (Charlotte); H. 505 (Barre Town); H.504 (Rutland City); and we successfully passed out H.364 (approval of the annexation of property by the Village of Swanton), which will go on to House Ways & Means.

On the House floor, the following bills passed: S.18 (licensure of free-standing birth centers) and S.28 (access to certain legally protected health care services); another bill S.27 (medical debt relief and excluding medical debt from credit reports) was on the calendar for action as of this writing.

In the Rural Caucus, we heard from entities representing rural healthcare interests, including the New England Rural Health Association and an interesting presentation on the community paramedicine model, which is being used in the Brattleboro area.  Paramedics go through a special certification program in conjunction with Brattleboro Memorial Hospital that allows them to make house calls to individuals with COPD, congestive heart failure, and other conditions that might otherwise bring them into the Emergency Dept. This preventative model is being used across the country in rural areas to supplement primary care practices and to avoid costly trips to the ED.

It is an honor to be a part of this process and to represent my district and Franklin Co in the Statehouse. Please reach out to me at [email protected]

Stay well,

Rep Lisa Hango