Stowe’s newest senators field local concerns

Real estate broker McKee McDonald told the lawmakers that Stowe brings in a lot of tax revenue for the state and wondered how the Legislature could ensure that revenue helps with the town’s rapid population growth, which has put immense pressure on housing and transportation infrastructure.

Regarding traffic on Mountain Road, Perchlik said transportation funding is determined by the number of miles of state roads in a town, not how much the town pays in taxes.

McDonald seemed unimpressed, saying, “So, 10,000 cars a day doesn’t matter if it’s on a six-mile road?”

Perchlik said the traffic on a state road would come into play if there was an effort to, say, add a third lane on Mountain Road. He said traffic could “bump up” an intersection on the state’s priority list, too.

Walter Frame, executive director and vice president of Trapp Family Lodge, noted that was the case with the Luce Hill Road and Route 108 intersection, which was recently fast-tracked by the state.

Perchlik also added there’s an effort to provide support for micro-transit services, which he described as “kind of like a public Uber.”

Watson added she supports increased funding for road maintenance and, as a former mayor of Montpelier, is aware there is “a fixed pot of money” towns can use for roads. She said she has heard of ideas to allow towns to implement local option gas taxes that could be used for road improvements or infrastructure like satellite parking lots.

Stowe already has one local option tax on rooms, meals and alcohol and is asking voters on Town Meeting Day to add a second local tax on sales and use.

“We have infrastructure in Vermont that is aging and in need of repair,” Watson said. “I would like to see us increase funding so that these towns are not all competing with each other for things they need.”

Frame asked the lawmakers for their ideas on increasing funding for child care, leading Cummings to explain that the Democratic-led Legislature will most likely look to “socialize that cost,” and tax resident’s income based on how much money they make, both as individuals and as employers. She acknowledged, though, that employers are already among those most incentivized to offer child care to recruit and maintain workers.

Cummings said there are also ideas of using revenue from a cloud tax — taking back some money from often-free internet-based software that doesn’t exist in physical form — to fund child care. She said that could affect some Stowe business, especially lodging facilities that use cloud-based reservation software.

Perchlik said one of the first bills he introduced when he was a new senator four years ago was the “candy tax,” but noted the amount that would bring in is negligible. In a similar vein, though, a better pot of money might come from pot money.

He said he would like to see some of the tax revenue from cannabis sales — which began in October — go to universal after school programs.

“I don’t think you hear much about that in child care discussions,” he said.