I was born and raised in Burlington VT, and have been a Moretown/Mad River Valley resident since 2007. I’m a retired Army officer, a facilitator, and a woodworker. I am a simple person as evidenced by this site, and I am also very principled, thus compelled to put my name on the ballot this year.

Education: University of Vermont: BA Political Science, 1992;

Norwich University: Master of Public Administration, 2020 (Distinguished graduate out of 38 students)

Perhaps most importantly for this endeavor, I am a Realist.

Here is the candidate profile featured in the Valley Reporter: https://www.valleyreporter.com/index.php/news/local-news/19207-burns-runs-as-independent-candidate-for-washington-2-state-rep-seat

After 'veto override week' in June of this year, I learned only 2 candidates were running for State Representative in the Washington-2 District. Both Democrats. This was unacceptable to me because a healthy democracy requires choice, so I decided to put my name on the ballot for the November election, running as an independent. Voters in this district will now have a choice. After walking around for the past many weeks I am meeting many people who seem very glad to have this choice.

Original FPF post:I must respond to some unfortunate postings that appeared in this Forum. I originally ignored these as they are obviously made-up, but after (at least) three postings, I feel the need to respond. Supporters of the incumbent, Representative Torre, have attributed false statements to me. I met with these individuals at their request, for a neighborly discussion very early in the campaign, and now some of these individuals are creating false statements attributed to me. This is very sad in a local race.

If you have followed my candidacy, you have seen how I work, and when I refer to the incumbent Representative, I refer to a voting record, printed words, or words spoken in a public forum and captured on video. These words are all on the record and available for public view. That's the difference. There is no record of the false, unfavorable statements attributed to me by these supporters of the incumbent. Indeed there cannot be a record, because they didn't happen. I believe these false statements demonstrate the current polarization in our legislature and our political system, which is now becoming common in our communities. I entered this race intending to operate on a higher level, and I will continue to do so, and maintain the values of honor and integrity which have guided my entire professional life. If you have concerns or wish to discuss anything including the topics (the big one - I am pro-choice, always have been) raised in the false postings please see my website: independent4vt.onepage.me, email me: independent4vt@gmail.com, or call 802 328 8001. Please think deeply about your vote on 5 November. JJB

ISSUE: Climate Change: We can work on climate change within our border, without creating more economic stress for Vermonters and businesses. Initiatives such as the 'clean heat standard' are experimental and projected to increase costs to Vermonters and businesses with no tangible return. Solution: Hands on projects right here in Vermont to mitigate future flood events.

ISSUE: Public Safety: 'People commit crimes because their needs are not being met' Do you agree? This is a sentiment openly expressed by sitting legislators, and it seems to have captured everyones attention. 'Law enforcement' and 'Law and order' are becoming antiquated concepts. Our Attorney General prosecutes VT police officers for doing their jobs. (By the way, what happens when peoples needs ARE met? Then they have wants. Like "I want bigger, better, and I want what you have!" Many are able to control these 'wants', but some don't and won't!) Solution: Restore some dignity and support to our LEO's, and remember that we have a SYSTEM evolved from 240 plus years based in the rule of law. We need to act within that system as we evolve to a more humane and progressive system of law, order, punishment and rehabillitation.

ISSUE: Homelessness: Here is a post I did in a recent VT DIgger survey: As a kid in Burlington I saw homeless people occasionally and thought “how can we allow that?” In my early working years I was in corrections, and I ran the Burlington bike path a lot, both allowed access to homeless persons and I would speak with them. Many seemed to have a certain contentment with their independence, their routine, and their possessions. I saw their satisfaction as they described turning a piece of junk (to ‘us’) into a useful staple in their life. I remember the glint of pride in one man’s eyes as he showed me the small camp he had built. Our current system robs these people of all this humanity. There are people with real needs, who want help, and that kid in me will work all day long to help them. But please let’s stop trying so hard to live others’ lives that we are enticing people to come to Vermont for a free hotel room, and they are further insulted by getting kicked out later. Stop this madness.

Solution/thought/idea: Help homeless people re-establish friend/family connections in their lives to secure housing.

As a Candidate for one of two State Representative seats in the Washington -2 district, I have been taking a deeper look at things that have created the current inefficient school funding system. Starting with the Brigham decision in 1997 the State was put on a path to do a better job of equalizing disparities between school districts ability to fund their schools. Simply put, some districts were ‘property-poor’ and some were ‘wealthy, and the Vermont Supreme Court said that Vermont needed to do a better job of ensuring that all students, whether from property-poor or wealthy school districts had a more equal educational opportunity. Specifically they stated that the State needed to ensure ‘substantial equality of educational opportunity’. Substantial equality. It is important to note as well that the courts in their discussion and analysis said that it was primarily a State (not town/district) responsibility to educate kids, and that in administering the education system statewide there were inherent disparities that made ‘absolute equality’ an impractical requirement.

Following the Brigham decision the Legislature enacted Act 60 and Act 68, and launched the beginnings of our school funding system. Over the years the two laws have been adjusted and ‘tweaked’, leading to the conclusion that they didn’t work very well as written and enacted. Then in 2022, yet another major adjustment in the formula came about with Act 127. Act 127 is yet another Vermont Law that was intended to respond to Brigham and make the school funding even ‘more equal’. This law focuses on a complex pupil weighting system which determines that different factors affect the cost of educating different students. This system assigns a ‘weighting system’ which results in students being counted as one student, as a percentage of one student, or perhaps being counted as two students. (Consider the reasonability of one student receiving and absorbing two times the educational input as the student next to them, while they get on and off the bus at the same time? We have to start critically thinking about these ideas imposed on us) Certainly there are valid reasons why some students need specialized/additional services, however, the entire construct of Act 127 and the pupil weighting system to make things ‘more equal’ amounts to a specious tangle of conditions which further isolates the school funding system from voter understanding and effectively creates new ‘inequities’ between school districts as they compete against each other for funding.

The evolution of the funding system over the 27 years since Brigham seems a quest towards the noble-sounding yet impossible goal of ‘equality’. We will always want to make things more equal where practical, however there is the inconvenient truth that some kids are better at math or reading, there are different learning styles, and some flourish in a machine shop over the classroom. However, the school system is on a quest for equality above all of these factors. Full equality. And this will ensure that the massive machinery of the Vermont school system with its highest in-the-country ratio of staff to students stays sufficiently overfunded. The education system has become an entrenched bureaucracy, concerned primarily with perpetuating itself, that is the nature of a bureaucracy. It is especially entrenched in this case because it leverages the sentiment of ‘we must do everything for children’. Indeed looking at the data available of declining students, (apprx. 100,000 in 2003 to apprx. 80,000 today) highest staff-per-student ratio, and second highest per-pupil cost to educate (educationdata.org) and throw in declining student proficiency over these same years and it is clear that the overspending is not reaching the children, but certainly is maintaining that bloated bureaucracy.

Act 127, recently enacted in 2022, contains these words in section 19: “Vermont’s system of equalized pupils within a shared education fund creates significant opportunities to meet the needs of schools and students. However, certain aspects of the current system distort or prevent a fully equitable and progressive education finance system.” Did you catch that, ‘fully equitable’. The Brigham decision said create a ‘substantial equality’ of educational opportunity, (relating to the process) to this most current layer of law which seeks to make the education system ‘fully equitable’, (relating to the outcome I would add). Now I could give the definitions of ‘equal’ and ‘equitable’ and find differences that the lawyers would argue over, but for the average legislator, I am going to assert that they are captivated by the ideal of ensuring a ‘completely equitable’ outcome for every student. This is an impossible goal, but the enduring pursuit of it will keep the entrenched bureaucracy of our education system very satisfied.

Take a look at the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxpsW7PweuI) of a hearing featuring The Chair of the Vermont Superintendents Association as he tells a House committee that they should ‘not limit the supply of money,’ and the State Education Committee member responds that they need to reapportion monies, but ‘not in a containment way’. ‘Cost containment’ is a phrase that I have seen a lot since doing this research, and it demonstrates the idea that the school system, like any other entity, is subject to the realities of things like having a budget and staying within it. To hear the dismissal of ‘cost containment’ in an education funding discussion shows how far we have regressed from sensible administration of our schools towards enabling a self perpetuating entrenched bureaucracy.

Solutions? Numerous solutions have been proposed over the years, and ignored. My solution at this point is to cut excess administration and staffing. During Covid there was an influx of federal money that allowed many additional positions to be created temporarily, and I have heard credible reports that these positions are effectively being made permanent. We live in a very sensitive world today, and realities of budgets, deadlines, and spending limits are ignored because these foundational aspects of an effective/efficient system may cause bad feelings. ‘Your temporary position is now ended’ is not in the lexicon, instead it's ‘don’t worry, well find a way to keep you around’. And the budget grows beyond reason. My job as your representative will be to say the truth. It may be unpleasant for some to hear, but thats where fixing the problem begins.

There are many more solutions I like at this point, perhaps legal caps on how much property tax can increase each year, (very common in other States) perhaps one Statewide school district, perhaps just the State and the general fund being more invested. I hope there will be a wave of voters willing to vote for new blood this year.

Peruse these sources for the data behind the above statistics:

National Center for Education Statistics

NationsReportCard.gov

Digest of Education Statistics: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/current_tables.asp

EDUCATIONDATA.ORG

https://usafacts.org/education/

The Vermont Constitution states that adherence to ‘moderation, temperance, industry, and frugality’ is ‘absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty’. Further, the Constitution provides the oath that Representatives take, wherein they pledge not to do things that “appear to you injurious to the people”, and that they conduct themselves as a “guardian of the people”.

As an independent candidate for one of the two Washington-2 Representative seats this November, I am asking voters of this district to think deeply about who they are voting for, and why. I have provided these constitutional references to help with this. You may ask yourself if you see any evidence of ‘moderation, temperance, or frugality’ from this current or any recent legislature. Do you feel like the legislature is acting as a guardian of the people? Or do you feel, as I do, that they are acting as social engineers or global saviors appointed to conduct experiments on Vermont's citizens? These experiments are threaded through most legislation on major issues, resulting in injury, loss of liberty and property, and a sense of bewilderment as Vermonters are forced to adjust their lives around outrageous taxation and ever-increasing costs.

Most everyone I talk to is thankful to have Governor Scott as a balance to the wild spending legislature. The Governor seems to have a ‘protect the people’ ethos, and espouses moderation, temperance, and frugality as part of a balanced leadership approach. The sense of hope in having a sensible Governor along with his highest in the Nation popularity is contrasted against the dysfunction of Vermont's polarized legislature. More bewilderment follows as we realize that Vermonters have elected both, and the legislature is happy to display their disregard for working with the Governor. (Yes, this is a 2-way street, but the Governor sure seems outnumbered). Part of this contrast must be explained by the thinking that ‘the legislature is dysfunctional, but my legislator is ok’. We want to think well of our own Representative, we have likely met them, and they seem nice. So we vote for them again, despite their voting record, not working with the Governor, and their previous failure to protect the people of Vermont. They pledge to do that next time, to protect taxpayers and consumers, and to be a guardian of the people in the next session. And we believe them, because they are our legislator, they seem nice, and surely they mean it this time! This is Lucy and the football thinking, and we the voters are Charlie Brown as we continue to send the same people to the State House under the dire circumstances we face today.