House Speaker Gaye Symington today offered more details of her plan to play up "Why Vermont Works." You surely read about the idea in last Sunday's Free Press (but available
here in case you missed it) after Symington pitched it to the House Democratic caucus.
Symington was listening to the Red Sox in the World Series on the radio when she heard Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick giving a Massachusetts business success story. Shouldn't Vermont similarly play up its successes? she said. Over the air during Frost Heaves games, Vermonters could be hearing the story of Company X in Vermont, planting seeds of thought among their themselves and their friends about how they, too, could build a successful business in Vermont.
How's the idea work for you? If it putting a new paint job on a sagging house or are Vermont's successes going untold? You can read the still-in-the-works proposal
here.
The Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce has taken to Symingotn's idea. The governor's office isn't dismissing it. Which doesn't mean they're all on the exact same page about it.
Symington says this has been missing in Vermont, by which she means that Gov. Jim Douglas too often dwells on what's wrong with Vermont.
"I've gotten more and more frustrated with the negative message," she said. "Much of it is driven by Governor Douglas and the message he puts out but I also think it's the business community."
Douglas spokesman Jason Gibbs took exception with that notion (when Douglas is famously cutting ribbons around the state, he said, he is championing new business), but not with Symington's overall idea.
"It's certainly a worthy idea. At the end of the day, however, we've got to put together a complete package that makes relocating from one state to another a good idea," he said and that means making Vermont's housing, energy and other resources affordable. "The key aspect is they're turning attention to the top priority of the state."
Tom Torti, president of the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, said Vermont has a long list of companies that are making a name for themselves and are worth touting, citing as one example Select Design, a Burlington marketing company. "The more we talk about the positive pieces without sticking our heads in the sand, the more other people in similar places are going to think if Select Design can do it, why can't I do it?" Torti said.
- Terri Hallenbeck
