Letter In Support Of Gary Gilbert

I write to enthusiastically encourage folks to vote for Gary Gilbert to continue to work for us in Montpelier. As our state rep he has dived into the issues and applied his years of familiarity with public education to critically assess some very thorny issues that came up in the last two years. His committee had to balance approaches to cost containment with some very real and increasing needs in the environment of the nasty economic times we have been going through.

I was discouraged to read criticism of his work based on a “Report Card” published by a statewide lobbying organization. We should take these reports with a grain of salt considering that their primary focus is to influence legislation with the interest of a particular constituency in mind, be it a union, an industry, school, bank, or investment company. I served 12 years in the legislature representing this area and I found that the groups preparing these “report cards” rely on certain easily counted votes that discount any of the subtleties a good rep like Gary has worked on at the committee level. Nor do they exhibit any understanding of the effects a particular piece of legislation might have on the wider community.

Unfortunately, the state level Chamber of Commerce seems particularly prone to evaluate individuals on very selective criteria that discount anything beyond a very simplistic view of what is good for the economic health of the public. It was not unusual for me to talk with a small business owner who would shake his head at some line in the sand the Chamber had drawn that didn't take into account the needs of his business - or those of the wider community.

Let’s not fall prey to the same naïve approaches to the economy that have led to so much trouble at the national level, let’s send Gary back to Montpelier and make him put his intelligence and experience to the real test of balancing our state’s needs. And if we have doubts about where he stands, let’s call him up and ask him instead of relying on interest groups to do our thinking for us!

Sincerely,
Ed Paquin, Fairfax