The Abundance Agenda - Gabe Lajeunesse

Gabe Lajeunesse is someone who genuinely loves seeing people's plans come to life. It’s what drives him. As a Financial Advisor, he’s passionate about turning possibilities into action by developing growth strategies. It’s what sparked his new local podcast, “The Abundance Agenda” to launch a short time ago right here in Central Vermont, which focuses on the challenges Vermont has with housing needs.


Before his career in finance, Gabe served his country in the U.S. Air Force, specializing in international affairs. He advised the Joint Chiefs and worked on interagency committees at the White House under Presidents Bush and Obama—analyzing how defense priorities impacted both economic and foreign policy.


Gabe serves as a Planning Commissioner for the City of Montpelier, an appointee to Vermont’s Community Development Board, and as a member of the Board of Directors for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).


He earned his Juris Doctor at Georgetown University Law Center and holds the Certified Exit Planning Advisor® designation from the Exit Planning Institute. He’s also shared his expertise as an educator, teaching economic policy, international affairs, and law at Georgetown University, Hamline Law, and Norwich University. His writing has been featured in The International Lawyer, Michigan Law Review First Impressions, and The Huffington Post.


Special thanks to Newton Wells for joining us by phone this morning.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (01:12):
A right, good morning, gang, Welcome to the Aired Out podcast.

(02:49):
It is a brand new, shiny day of The wind
is whipping. It's whipping, and I'm going to start out
this morning by saying, be positive. Trying to be positive.
It's what I'm saying to myself because I just spent
a gazillion dollars on a you know, those portable car ports,

(03:16):
and been struggling putting this thing together since Saturday. Finished
late last night out there with the ladder in the headlamp,
putting it all together. What do you think I woke
up to this morning? Mangled mess, steel pipes splintered, broken

(03:43):
from the wind. What are you gonna do? What are
you gonna do? At least nobody got hurt but Murphy's
Law right alive and well. This morning. I have a
gentleman who is sitting right next to me, gayblodgin Us,
who I just met just a short time ago. Man,

(04:03):
it is an absolute pleasure to meet you.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
I'm so glad to have you in here. Kind of
met you by phone not too long ago. You are
a local guy. You've started your own podcast, The Abundance
Agenda please tell me a little bit about about you,
who you are, what you do. The abundance agenda is

(04:31):
kind of a political concept, if you will, am I right.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Well, it's policy, yeah, for sure. I mean, you know,
really it starts on in housing as a passion of mine.
I think we all know we're in a housing crisis.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I started a small development firm based out of Montpelier
Acre Development in twenty twenty one, and we're trying to
you know, do some smart growth, trying to get some infield,
trying to get some housing into the community. And there's
just a lot of our debates right now. You look
at just across the spectrum, whether we're talking about schools,
whether we're talking about hospitals. Right, it's all about affordability,

(05:12):
and they're all connected, right, It's all this you know,
giant cycle and housing is a big part of it.
And really, you know, the abundance of the idea for
the abundance agenda. There were a couple of things that happened.
One Vermont Futures project, which is you know, sort of
an outgrowth of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce. They've been
looking for a long long time at you know, how
Vermont can be sustainable how we deal with the fact

(05:34):
that we're losing young people. Right, So they've been looking
at for a while, but they put out an economic
policy study at the beginning of the year where they
sort of outlined, like, this is what it's going to
take for us to work through the challenges we have,
and they couched it in terms of we have a
choice between scarcity, like we tighten our belts, we don't

(05:55):
spend money, like we just you know, ratchet things down
and maybe we can balance our budget that way, or abundance, right,
And the idea of abundance is that we need to
invest and we need to spend money. And what they show,
it's just data, but what they show is that jad
we need to you know, over two hundred thousand working
age adults to move to Vermont over the next twenty
years if we want to be fiscally.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Solvent or what And if we don't, well, if.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
We don't, our schools are going to close, our hospitals
are going to close. We just are not going to
have the lifestyle that we have. We're not going to
have the same quality of life that we have today,
and it will degrade over time. Right, we just can't
afford what we've built.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Man, Today is November fourth, and it was not necessarily
with design to have you on today, but today's election
day and Vermont Central Vermont right here, Barry Granite City
is going to be voting on some really important things. Here.
Pols have been open since seven o'clock this morning. There's
been some some early balloting, but we're going to be

(06:54):
voting today on some really important things, not just housing
seminary Street article one. I'm sure you're familiar with that
of this new housing development. I think you had Tom
Loson on not too long ago talking about that.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, I mean I think Barry's doing a lot of
really impressive things. And the votes today certainly are. This
is what the discussion is about, right, It's like and
the bottom line is what Vermont Futures showed is that
we just can't I'm a fiscal conservative, but we just
can't cut our way to where we need to be.
So if you want to talk about the elections for
a second, I mean you think about bonds. I've heard

(07:34):
people that are against the proposals that are being put
on the ballot today. We can't afford it. Well, Gadie.
That's not the way bonds work, right, bonds work. There's
you know, Vermont has a really high credit rating, right,
double a credit rating. If we're going to be able
to issue a bond, it means that we've got cash flow.
We can demonstrate to underwriters who are you know, professional

(07:56):
and underwrite these bonds all across the country, that we're
going to be able to pay for this whatever it is,
the school, the housing project, whatever it is, that there
is sufficient cash flow to back this thing up. And
so the idea that we can't afford it, that's not
I mean, there's no Look, if a bond can be issued,
you can afford it, right Like, it's a very solid investment, right.

(08:16):
So it's not about that. It's about what do we
want to be And this is again do we want
to tighten our belts? But the issue is we cannot
cut our way. You just can't keep cutting services. You're
just gonna end up with, you know, an unaffordable place
to live. And so it's going to be what you
see in some places. You know, we lived in California
time at one point, and you had basically like all

(08:37):
the working population had to kind of commute into this
area and it was just a bunch of wealthy people.
You get a lot of second third homeowners. Right, the
stoves can survive. You know what happens to the Johnson's
of Vermont?

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Right?

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Do they exist in the future if we can't figure
this out.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Dave Horner just wrote, good morning, Please remember to vote.
So here's the deal, and I think you you would
support this. And this is something that I've been banging
for years. Is no matter how you feel, exercise your
your due diligence, exercise your the great privilege that you

(09:17):
have to weigh your opinion and to vote. You know,
I was explaining to my eleven year old little girl
this morning. Yeah, dad, I already know. I mean I
heard that, but that there's countries where you you're they
don't give a damn how you feel. There's no voting. Yeah,

(09:38):
you have the ability to know what a blessing? Right,
what a blessing? I mean, really stop and think about
that that. Don't take that for granted. Go up to
the auditorium today and vote. You got till seven o'clock tonight,
no bullshit, no excuses. Do it if you haven't done
it already.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
I you know, it's really important, I think, and a
lot of these uh, you know, these debates that you
have about what we should do. You have a handful
of people that are very active in their communities and
they show up at all the hearings, right, and so
you have like the squeaky wheel are the are the
folks that like just love the stuff and they show up,
but they could they could misrepresent what the actual view is, right,

(10:20):
and and so then it's this is where we get
to decide, you know, Tiff. You know, if you look
at tax increment finance, which is you know, how you're
going to take care of a lot of these housing projects, right,
it's going to be future tax revenues is gonna come
back and pay for where you're at. They overwhelmingly pass
in the state of Vermont right to to to, you know,
to to two out of three voters will vote generally

(10:42):
for they get it right, they understand. But the moment
that we decide to not show up and vote, it's
like that again, those people that are active partisans, right,
they're gonna win the day. And so we need to
show up. We need to show up to those critical
city council. It's hard right city council meetings. Man, they could, right,
they could be so long.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
Right.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
But if if there's a one where the big vote
you don't show up and the city council only hears
from the people that are against something, you know, they
never hear the other side of it, right, So voting
like this is how we all get to come out
and say no, we believe in this, we want to
see more housing.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Thought, brace yourself, folks, because we're going to talk about
the proposed central from our Career Center as well. Coming
up in just a little bit, but Seminary Street thirty
one flood resilient affordable housing units developed by Downstreet Housing.
Downstreet is also a new supporting sponsor of the Air
Now podcast, and a lot of people have lots of

(11:35):
great opinions about Downstreet and some not so much. But
I mean, listen, they're doing great things. Man, Look at
Fox Run. I mean they're doing amazing things. You know
about Sporanza, the Speranza in there, the old quality in
right down the road here. Yeah, what they're do, what
they're doing with that, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
I mean it's they're an amazing organization. Right. We all
need need, we all need affordable housing. We're so grateful
for Andy Harbin and the good work that they're doing
over there. And I'm grateful, you know, I look at
Barry in particular, like the dollar lot sales, you know,
I mean, that's some aggressive It's tough. Mottpielier's got one
going on right now. They got a one dollar proposal
for country Club Road that we hope we get a

(12:19):
bunch of qualified applicants that show some interest in that.
But wows. It takes, you know, forward thinking city leadership
to go and say, look, we're gonna we don't need
to make a profit on this thing. We need to
create housing now. We need all kinds of housing, and
so affordable housing is one component. There's only you know,
so those things are a lot of the money for
that comes through tax credits, and there's only so much

(12:41):
of that that comes around each year. It can't solve
all of our housing needs. And we need we need
all kinds of housing, right market rate housing, we need
luxury housing. You know, you go talk to the hospital,
they'll tell you they have doctors to come out and
take a look around. They don't they don't find a
place they want to live. They don't find a community
they feel comfortable living in. They don't take jobs out here. Right,
why do we have all the visiting nurses people come up?

(13:02):
Take a look, They're like, we can't find housing that
we in, a place that we want to live that
we feel like is affordable. Those are not people that
are going to live in downstreet projects, but they need
to live somewhere, right, And so where are they? I know,
you get another great sponsor with effectos. I see them
on your stuff, all right, I mean they're you know,
Beckley Hill. I mean these guys, you got people that
are providing housing. But there's a lot of room for
a lot of people to get involved in this. And

(13:23):
it is it is a crisis.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
Isn't it amazing? The the the tentacles of of all
of this, the rabbit holes that that we can go down.
How everything is related, like you alluded to earlier, there's
mental health, there's there's housing, there's affordability, there's the economy,
there's uh, there's mental health, there's drug use, there's homelessness.
I mean, everything is connected here.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
And.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
What's the hub? What's the hub of it? It's we
all have different opinions.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
But I think almost everybody is saying housing is the key.
Like if you go to to you know, if you
look at the work by the Green Mountain Careboard to
look at the potential for closures of hospitals, you know,
their research and they brought in a consultant who does
this all over the country. Right, But it was basically housing, Like,
you've got to figure out this housing piece because it's
just creating this untenable, unaffordable. There's other issues. It's not

(14:19):
the only issue, but it's that, you know, I think
it's you know, the one of the most critical. But
the thing about it is, so, are are you familiar
with the concept of a doom loop?

Speaker 1 (14:29):
No?

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Okay, So the idea of a doom loop is that
we have it's what you're describing that we have a
whole bunch of factors that are all you know, they're negative,
trending negative, and they're all impacting some economic factor that's
trending negative is impacting another, which impacts another, and so
you end up in this downward spiral. Right. And so
generally we thought about doom loop, it's been associated with

(14:52):
inner cities. Right. So if you think of like Detroit's
a classic example, because they've actually turned it around. So
in Detroit, you know, you have this phenomenon where it's like, oh,
the streets get a little bit dangerous and the crime
gets you know, challenging. And so guess what happens. Employers
don't you know, they don't locate their offices there, and
then what happens. Then there's no foot traffic. So then

(15:13):
the restaurants close, right, and so the next thing you know,
you got like this ghost town where nobody's at Well,
that's a doom loop.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
How the hell did you get out of that?

Speaker 2 (15:21):
And so Detroit has gotten themselves out of a doom
loop by it started with some big investors, some big
families that have made a lot of money in that
you know, from that community that reinvested. It starts with
some big projects, but then other people start piling in. Yeah, right,
so they say, okay, there's some really I think Barry
is a great example. I saw a great presentation the

(15:43):
Saint Albans the city manager up there, Like he he
just showed the transformation that's happened there over about a
decade of them strategically coming in buying little you know,
seeing opportunities to redevelop certain areas, you know, making making
some calculated risks, right, and now what you have in
that place, it's beautiful, right, But it took a decade.
And what happens is once you make those big investments

(16:06):
is then you can have smaller developers. We need a
lot of small developers to come in and stay. Say
oh hey, I can convert this to like some condos.
I can take this dumpy multifamily that hasn't been invested
in for fifty years and frankly should probably not be
you know, condoned for anybody to live in, and it's
worth now investing some money into this place and turning

(16:27):
it into something that people do want to live in
and has some economic value. But that's not going to
happen until you have some of these big.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Moves residual uh.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Spin off Yeah, right, let's reverse that doom loop.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Right.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
It takes a lot of us, but the big moves
are really important. Right. So I think again that some
of the stuff that you're looking at here, you know,
I don't I don't know enough about the Tech Center
to really have a strong opinion on it other than
to just say it is a choice. This is a
choice right that we're making of investing in our future
or tightening our belt. And again, the fact that there

(17:02):
could be a bond there means that you can't afford
to do it. It's not that you can't afford to
do it now, whether the programs that are going to
be offered there, whether I don't know anything about that.
I don't know enough about to comment on it. But
I just think if you create something, the concept of it,
the concept of creating a place where our kids feel like,
I have a future. I can get a really good
paying job without getting into debt, right, I can immediately

(17:24):
come out of school and be employable, right and contribute
to a community that I really.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Care about, maybe without going to college.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
To maybe without going to college, or maybe transitioning into
an employer sponsored training program or something like that, or
an apprenticeship program.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Right starting my own business, starting a business, like putting
down roots.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
If we create a pathway where these kids want to
stay here, like, isn't that everything that we could want
to create?

Speaker 1 (17:50):
So Dave just posted something here and I was just
going to bring this up. Anyways, The price tag on
this is one hundred and forty nine mil top to bottom. Yeah. Everything.
They were originally estimating that it was going to be
somewhere between one p fifty and two hundred, so they
were actually delighted to see that it came in a

(18:11):
mill less. Dave says, one hundred and forty nine million
added to our taxes. And that's just the first year.
It's not going to be completed until twenty twenty nine.
That means more bonds each year until then, until it's done.
Let's get real training back apprenticeships. We will have to

(18:36):
pay for bis for busing too. Plus how will it
work when they reconfigure the districts. So some valid concern here.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, I mean I think those are all. I mean
that's all. But again you could you couldn't get the
bond if there wasn't the money to pay for it.
I mean, I guess that's my you know, there's enough
money to put it together, whether it's a good investment
or not. I mean, that's again, that's a different sort
of conversation.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
The breakdown for different towns.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
No I have Okay, yeah, but you know the idea
of the apprenticeship I think you know absolutely right, and
you have seen there is a it's interesting our young
people are pretty smart.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
You know.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
If you look at the student loan debt, I don't
know exactly your age, but you look like you might
be a gen X or might righte fifty five okay
next week. So in our space, right like, we have
the most student loan debt. Can you imagine that? Yeah,
gen X, we still are paying down student loans like
that is insane. The young guys, they're not They're not
getting into a system where they're going to take out

(19:33):
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of student loans to
get a degree in puppetry or something, right Like, it's
not happening. They are, they are. It's like the apprenticeships
have doubled since pre COVID, right, like the number, but
we need more than that, Like, there's so many training
programs that we could look at.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
There's between one hundred and fifty and two hundred students
that are turned away every single year because of the
current capacity over at the Central from my career center. Yeah,
and some of them our age now right by the
time their numbers up. Yeah, I mean again, it's all

(20:11):
about the future to me.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
This discussion of austerity versus you know, abundance. It's what
kind of future do we want to build?

Speaker 3 (20:18):
Right?

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, you know we're this is where we have to
look to the what do we want this to look
like in fifty years? And it starts with an investment
we make today. All the things that we love around
us JD. Everything around us that we love a previous
generation built, They made decisions to invest and we get
to benefit from that.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Now. Yeah, you you had first of all, if you're
just joining us, Gabe Loginus, he is a local businessman, investor.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, I'm a financial guy, real estate investor. Yeah, all
of that.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, started a podcast called The Abundance Agenda. It's on Facebook.
You need to stop and go there and have a look,
give a like, give a follow, thank you, and get
involved with your comments and share something. It's a race
or sharp niche and it's something that's really a hot

(21:12):
button issue right now. Housing in general. You've just had
Tom Lowson on not too long. Yeah, recap what he said.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, I mean I was talking to all the cities
around central Vermont just trying to understand what they're doing
on the housing issue. And the thing that Tom really
contributed was the team approach that you're seeing in Barry.
Like again, we kind of talked about some of these
dollar lot sales. He was talking about some of the
proactive work that's going to help people recognize that maybe
you could build an ADU, or maybe you could subdivide

(21:41):
or some of these things. It's just the team approach
that you have here, I think is what it's going
to take to jump start some of these bigger projects
like you know are being voted on today and those
that will take place in the future. But it then
gives people, smaller developers, smaller real estate operators confidence and investing.
I mean, you had to show yesterday about why landlords

(22:04):
are not you know, they're there, may be pulling up stakes,
they're like what, you know, the is it worth reinvesting
in this property at this moment in time. And again,
if we want to work ourselves out of this doom loop,
we got to do some of these big things. We
got to see some you know, we got to have
some positive energy and then we can make the choices.
And so what I heard from Tom was just a
very organized, you know, team led effort by the City

(22:29):
of Barry to put housing as a major priority. Now
most of the communities around recognize they have a problem.
And everybody that I interviewed, they're all doing something. I
would say my impression, you know, and again you'd have
to go look at housing starts, you know, in retrospect,
let's look back and say, hey, who had more housing starts?
Who created more housing? But I would say Barry impressed
me as being the most organized in their effort to

(22:53):
address this issue. But everybody's doing something. Everybody knows they
have a challenge and everybody's trying to work on it.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
The talents that uh don't have zoning are being creative.
The family structure has has changed. Oh yeah, there's a
lot of these eight us now that are popping up everywhere. Yeah.
One of the subjects that you discuss in the Abundance

(23:19):
Agenda is subdivision and what that looks like and how
possible that is to be able to get a deeper
look at it, whether or not it's it's the right
option for you. How to make I think one of
your episodes was how to make some of your your
property or your backyard a revenue stream?

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think if you look at
the reality we're at, you know, we have one in
two person households. Right, we've got you know, most of
our housing stock. It is like three thousand square foot
farmhouse Victorian style, like really, you know, four bedroom, five
bedrooms all.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Around all around here. R and Monthpillier my god, I
mean it was just on College Street and Month Pilliers.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Everywhere hard way. I mean you go to you driver,
I mean that's what we did, you know, back in
the day when the you know, when Granted was big
and there was lots of railroad traffic, and right, we
built these big homes. Families were different.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
And then during the winter we sealed off a lot
of those rooms so that we didn't have to heat them. Yeah,
I mean they're huge homes.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
So now what you have is you have a lot.
It's mostly you know, baby boomers, but you got a
lot of baby boomers living in kind of too much
house and they have a lot of equity, right, They've
got a lot of equity locked up in their real estate.
And you know, really what we're just talking to people
about is, hey, how can you unlock some of that equity?
Do you have a double sized lot, could you subdivide?
Could you partition the house? Not everybody's going to want

(24:44):
to do that. But you know, like where I grew up,
I sort of look at New Hampshire and you know,
if you were to look in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, you
know you went back in time when we were kids
and growing up and stuff similar kind of situation. Right,
lots of like houses that were really big. But as
the demographics changed, what you had is a lot of
a lot of these places got cut up into apartments,

(25:05):
got cut up into condos, and frankly, it preserved a
lot of really beautiful housing stock that instead of having
you know, one five bedroom you know captains you know
house or something. It's like, look, there's four different families
that are living in this place that are all contributing
to the historic upkeep of this property. It's beautiful. I
mean if you've been a Portsman New Hampshire lately, but
it's like it's so gorgeous. And what's happened over time

(25:28):
is then now they have a lot of new construction, right,
a lot of the industrial space or whatever developers are
coming in and they're turning those into beautiful sort of
luxury you know, kinds of lifestyle living. But it's created
a space where now we can have all kinds. You know,
we need everything, right, We need the affordable housing, We
need some smaller spaces where these one and two bedroom

(25:48):
families can live, right, and then we're going to have
on the luxe end. You know, you'll have some of
that as well, but without you know, the the zoning. Right,
this is one of the big discussions that you have.
So the other big movement towards abundance. There was a
book written this. So my first introduction was the Vermont
Futures Project, but in the spring there was a book
written by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson of the New

(26:11):
York Times in the Atlantic called It's Abundance is what
it's called. But they basically go through and just talk
about how we created an environment where housing is almost impossible, right,
Like we created zoning rules, you know, we created historic protections,

(26:32):
We created a lot of things that for at the time,
there was good reason to do it. There's a lot
of good reasons to do what we did. But now
we've created a situation that's really difficult to work our
way out of now that we have this housing crisis,
and so basically the solution to that, they just point
this out it's in our hands, Like we just have
to decide to reform. Like getting a permit means we're

(26:53):
giving you permission. Like, let's just make it easier for
you to get a permit to do something that's going
to create value and create housing and give people a
place to live.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Is that being done in Vermont?

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, people are doing it, you know, and frankly, the
legislature we really should look to, you know, you know,
both the governor and the legislature at you know, the
Act to fifty reforms that have happened, the CHIP legislation
that was passed last year. There's a lot of that.
That's the Community Housing Infrastructure Program, which will similar to
a tiff. It'll be like mini tiff, right, you can
have future revenues can offset infrastructure, you know, projects that

(27:29):
need to happen before you're going to see housing created.
But they've sort of forced communities to say, look, everybody
can build an ADU in the state of Vermont. Everybody can.
It doesn't matter what your zoning says. If you want
to put an accessory dwelling unit and create a space
for somebody to live, you know, whether that's an in
law that needs a place, or whether that's you know,
just providing housing and renting something out to somebody that

(27:50):
wouldn't have a space. Otherwise everybody can do that, and
any lot with city water and sewer can have four units, right,
So most of our zoning was skewed towards single family occupancy.
That's what it was really written towards. It was sort
of written to protect that. And the state came in
and said, look, you guys can do whatever else you want,
but you're going to do these things. You're going to
allow accessory dwelling units. The state of California was one

(28:12):
of the first to really go that direction. I think
they passed their legislation on ADUs in like twenty twenty.
Around that timeframe, ADUs are now twenty percent of all
building projects in the state of California. They just needed
to unlock us. They needed to create an environment where
people could and frankly, if you ever look at really
the best, the coolest designs of tiny homes, they're all

(28:34):
California companies now because they've created a demand.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
I was going to ask about the tiny home movement
and if it is still alive and well.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Nationally, Yeah, I mean it's I think it takes. So
the legislation is the enabler, and California did that. Yeah,
and pricing, you know, like all you got to do
is look at home prices in California. Know, hey, most
most you know, young couples that try to move out
there are not going to be able to afford to
live a you know, at one point five million dollar,
eight hundred score foot ranch house. That doesn't work, right,

(29:06):
But can they live in a tiny home in somebody's backyard?
Yes they can. And so to me, what it takes,
I think what you see getting to this twenty percent
of all building permits or eighty us. First the legislation happens,
which we did a couple of years ago in Vermont.
Then you have to have some people start doing it right.
And so if you if you, you know, build an

(29:27):
apartment above your garage, people, you know, probably what's gonna happen.
Now it's less controversial today, but in the past, you
would have had your neighbors show up and oppose you.
This is what would happen. I'm just telling you. They
might love you. You guys may be best friends and
have barbecues, But you say, I'm gonna do this project
in my backyard. Your neighbors are all gonna show up
at the hearing and they're gonna be like, it's gonna
create all this traffic and they're gonna run over my

(29:49):
kids on the way to school. It's gonna create noise.
Right again, now that it's of right, you're gonna have
less of that. But what's gonna happen, what's actually gonna happen,
is when you build that apartment above your garage, and
now your mother in law lives there, right, and they
meet your mother in law and they're like, she's the
or whoever it does. Right, they meet the new neighbor
and they love them. They're gonna start saying, hey, this

(30:09):
isn't such a bad thing. Maybe I can do this
above my garage. Yeah, maybe I can put a tiny
home in my backyard. Right, And then it creates this
what you're seeing in California, where the the industry will
flock here because they'll be like, look, people are building
these and there's a demand.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Sure here in Vermont the tiny home movement. A good
friend of mine, Newton Newton Wells, was like, you know,
I'm jumping on this, man, I'm gonna do this newt
How big is your home?

Speaker 3 (30:37):
Hey, good morning?

Speaker 4 (30:39):
Uh four hundred and thirty square feet?

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Oh, I love it.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
And it's what is it, sixteen by twenty.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yeah, sixteen by twenty, so three hundred and twenty feet
square feet on the main floor and then there's another
one hundred feet in the loft.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
All right, What made you decide to do this here
in Vermont, buddy?

Speaker 4 (31:00):
Vermont had just barely enacted that law when I did it.
I think I was the first one in my town
to do it because I went to get the permit
at the town at a meeting with one of the
town boards, and and they had not heard of that before.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
So I had to bring in the law with me
and explain it.

Speaker 4 (31:19):
But I decided to do it because, you know, with
that new law, I.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Was like, Wow, you know I could.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
I could build myself a small cabin to live in, and.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
You do not have to buy another lot.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
I did have to do a new septic and another
well to meet that requirement, but you know, at least
I didn't have to buy another chunk of land, which
is the whole purpose of this auxiliary dwelling law. It
enables people to build another dwelling on a lot that
otherwise would only contain one dwelling because you know, a

(31:57):
lot of towns have two acres zoning. Some them have
different requirements, but you know, in my town it's two
acre zoning, and so it's one house on the two
acre lot. And so the the auxiliary dwelling lot enables
people to have the one house plus the auxiliary dwelling,
which can be in a separate building.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
It doesn't have to be an apartment within the main building.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
What's your uh, what's your your your heating costs? Here? Utilities?

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Oh, the utilities are almost nothing.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
I mean we we did this with I built this
house in like oh.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
Nine and it it I.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
Remember ordering the wall and ceiling panels. It's a timber
frame with with superinsulated panel.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Walls stress skin, right, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
Think that's another term for them.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
And and so I ordered it at the at the
time when gas had just for the first time gone
to over four dollars a gallon, and I figured, well,
you know, if this is the future of buying fuel,
I want to spend a little extra money on really

(33:08):
good insulation. So I've got I've got I think if
I remember correctly. The walls are eight inch thick polystyrene
and the ceiling is twelve inch polystyrene. So in in
in a year, I might burn through two hundred gallons

(33:31):
of propane. And that runs the radiant floors in the
basement and the main floor, and it runs the propane
for the range and the water heater.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
And you rigged up a solar panel too.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
Yeah, we've got a solar panel out back.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
The solar panel is uh, you know, it's funny.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
I just recently did the math on the solar panel
and the payback on those is a whole lot longer
than what was promoted at the time.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Given the opportunity to do that again, I don't think
I would, But.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Yeah, you know, it's like a lot of this stuff
that gets promoted as really highly efficient.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Like heat pumps and things. You know.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
I put heat pumps in a three bedroom house that
I rent out, and.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
That the system went in and the.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
First January and February that I ran it. By the
end of January, I got a letter from the Morristown
Water and Light that said, if you consume this much
electricity again next month, we're going to put you in
commercial rates and your electric rates will triple. So you know,

(34:56):
I had to stop running the heat pumps in the winter.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
We took the controls off the listen.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
I think you recognize that not everybody can can do this.
You don't have any kids, You have a very very
very small family. But are you hopeful that vermont is
is going to get more on this wave of the
of the tiny home movement? I note that there's there's

(35:26):
pods and and things being built. What in Chittenden County?
Am I right?

Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yeah? I mean I think the pods in Chittenden County
are these little manufactured things that the city has erected
on a parking lot for like transitional housing from homeless people,
for homeless people to have a more stable place before
they get into a regular apartment or something. But but yeah,

(35:54):
I mean many homes are great. I think what what
Morristown did after I built my house?

Speaker 3 (36:03):
They changed the law.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
So the state law says that the town has to
allow it, and has to allow up to thirty percent
the size of the main house to which the auxiliary
dwelling is subordinate, but the town to have the right.
The state law gives each town the right to adjust

(36:25):
those laws make them laxer if they want to so
that so that if.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
They want to allow a larger auxiliary dwelling.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
Then they can do so. And the last time I've checked,
which was, you know, a couple of years ago, a
few years ago, the town had changed it so that
I could I could have built my house, my auxiliary
dwelling twice as big as I did. But of course
that you know, it's not it.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
I could. I could change it now, but I'd have to.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
I'd have to do all kinds of work to you know,
double the size of the build.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
It would not be easy. But so, I mean that's good.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
And I think that auxiliary dwellings are are great as
long as they can be a little bigger than what
I built. I mean, what I built is fantastic, but
it's a little tight, you know.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
I mean I think, uh, you know.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
Had I had the opportunity, I would have made it
a little bigger than I did.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Yeah, you know, having a mud room would have been great.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
Having a kitchen that's a little bigger would have been
really fantastic. And even having room for a dining room
table instead of just a kitchen countertop with stools would
be would be really nice too.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
People just too.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think this is you know,
this is a thanks for the callin I you know
what you hear from in the downsizing discussion, which is
part of this how do to you unlock equity? There
are people who would move out of their main house
and move into an eighty, but they don't want to
move into that four hundred square foot kind of situation

(38:04):
because of those things that were just described right that
they'd like something that you know, is suitable for them.
So it's maybe going to be more like eight hundred
square feet. And again the ADU law will allow that.
It depends on the size of the primary home. But
that's I think that there are some issues like is
four hundred square feet going to be enough for everybody?

Speaker 4 (38:22):
You know?

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Maybe not, but it is. It is an option, right.
I think having a whole ecosystem of housing is important.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Yea, it is. But the one problem with the ADU
thing is that you're building a much smaller dwelling and
the fixed costs of site work, steptic, well, concrete, all
of that is pretty much the same.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, that's true, you.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
Know, regardless of whether it's four hundred eight hundred or
fifteen hundred square feet, so you know, the cost for
square foot increases dramatically when you build a really small
auxiliary dwelling. So I mean, I think these laws are
changing for a reason, and and that's a good thing.

(39:11):
They're they're making the state and the different towns are
making it easier for people to build larger auxiliary dwellings,
which really I think is the solution. Yeah, because of.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
The cost aspect and the practicality aspect.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah, yep, thanks new thank you.

Speaker 4 (39:31):
You know, I've always been a big proponent of all
of these things, but you know, having done it, having
done the heat pumps and the solar panels and the
and the auxiliary dwelling, these are things that I would
the points I mentioned are things that I would I
would really reconsider, uh having done it all.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Once interesting stuff. You know this and and this this home.

Speaker 4 (39:59):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
I would love to show it to you, Gabe, if
we ever have time to grab a cup of coffee
and run up there. Man, you just wouldn't believe it.
It's just absolutely beautiful, beautiful. And I note that that
there was some discussion about Barry having some tiny homes.

(40:21):
I think Tom Loson even had a couple of them
built not too long ago.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
I didn't know that. Yeah, I mean there's a couple
of things with it too, you know, the so accessory
dwelling unit laws with those allow there's another issue of
like when we think about the tiny home movement, if
you went out and just google tiny homes and you
were looking to buy something, and you want to have
to hire a contractor to build something, you have to

(40:49):
really look at your local laws because a lot of
these would not be legal on our communities, right if
they're zoning. If you're in a community with zoning in Montpellier,
for example, currently, you know, you couldn't buy most of
these off the shelf tiny homes because they're not built
to the same housing standard as traditional construction.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Right, so buy one at home depot.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yeah, you could buy one at home depot, but if
you don't meet all the same requirements as a stick
built house on site, it's not going to be permitted, right,
so to go buy There's a great Vermont company. Boy,
I wish I should have had the name of these guys,
but they're building these on wheel kind of accessory dwelling
units that are meant for people that have hand they're handy,

(41:33):
they need to be handicapped accessible. Right, So, hey, you
you became paralyzed or you had, you know, some health
issue that requires you to be in a wheelchair. How
do you sort of get around? So, if you're a parent,
you have this happen to a kid, or it happens
to an in law or something, right, your parents, what
do you do? Well, you can just drop this on
a property. Right, you can buy one of these units
and drop it on your property, but it won't meet

(41:55):
most of our zoning rules because it wasn't built to
that standard. Most of them are built the old they
called them park models right there. They're basically built of
the r V standard.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
They're on on wheels with a you know, a chassis
that can move around and not be permanent housing. But
in most of our communities, I think in Montpelier, for example,
maybe you've got one hundred twenty days that you could
have somebody there, it's considered camping, right, and so it's like, well,
without some zoning reform, people couldn't even like you want
to put a yurt in your backyard and let somebody
live there. And a lot of our communities that would

(42:27):
be illegal.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah, we were just stupping down Route one on the
coast of Maine near Wells and some of those park models,
I mean it's just beautiful, oh.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yeah, gorgeous, rightful. Some of these urts are beautiful. I
mean there's a lot, you know, there's a place that
has park models over in Stow. They're actually renting them
their hospitality units, and they're gorgeous. There are these little
a frames. They're beautiful, right but again, could you put
one in your backyard? It depends on where.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
You live, you know. Also on Route one and we
saw they were taking containers.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, oh yeah, container homes, stacking.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Them on top of each other, putting some signing on them,
and they're beautiful, beautiful, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
I mean again it's it's a permit. What do we
want to allow if we really feel we have a
crisis or we will want to make space for neighbors
that they can have a place to live. Yeah, And
and these are the debates that were, you know, again,
austerity or abundance. What do we want to have? You know,
why should everybody show up because you want to put
an apartment above your garage? Why do all your neighbors

(43:36):
in that moment want to show up and be like, right,
this is this is terrible. You're gonna you know the stories,
you know, if you go to any of these hearings, right,
like the stories that you hear. Uh, it's it's traumatic.
A lot of people don't even want to go. They're like,
oh man, I have to go get go to one
of those hearings. I don't even want to I don't
even want to deal with that. I'm gonna need a
therapist when I'm done.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, and again if you haven't Lord the Abundance Agenda podcast.
My host is Gay Blotchiness and he started this podcast
right here in central Vermont. And you've had some amazing
content in just a short period of time. We started
this thing a couple of months ago, right.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Yeah, Yeah, just getting going, you know, just trying to figure.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Out what made you say I'm doing this.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
You know, I just I feel like going through these
processes where you see again a minority of voices stopping
you know, development in communities. Right So in mont Pilier
right now, there's a new development team that's that's there.
They're trying to do a two four flex projects, one

(44:45):
for Capstone Community Action and another one for Habitat for Humanity,
both agencies that were like, these are good people. These
are good people doing good things. Neighbors have appealed their project,
they have to go to environmental court. It's like why,
you know why, And so it's you know. And then
watching again the Green Mountain Careboard and the discussions of

(45:07):
our hospital like fourteen hospitals potentially closing and housing is
identified as the number one issue. It just seems like
we need to create more education so people can understand.
And frankly, the solution is not just a big developer
coming in here and doing everything. The answer is a
lot of small developers saying, yeah, I'm gonna put an

(45:27):
ad in my backyard. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know,
carve up this property and turn it into three apartments.
Yeah I'm gonna. You know, it's gonna take a bunch
of us to do a lot of small things to
really make a difference. I'll say this too, So for
if you look at Tiff or you look at this
new program chip that was just passed this last year,

(45:48):
those things are gonna harness the tax revenues. Such again
it's community Housing Infrastructure program, and it's very similar to
tax increment finance, where basically they're gonna they're gonna grab
the property tax revenues over the next twenty years to
pay down that bond. But that's also something to think about. So, yes,
we're going to get those big projects done now that

(46:09):
you know, we hope would happen on their own, but
aren't because you know, infrastructure is just too expensive to
you know, for people to invest in and make happen,
right from a pure commercial market rate standpoint, But you
think about it, that full property tax role isn't going
to hit until twenty years from now. Whereas if you
put an ADU on your property, right, or you subdivide,

(46:31):
you have a double lot and you sell that other
lot and somebody builds a new house immediately, that's on
the tax rolls, right. So all those small developments, you
know what you're seeing in California that twenty percent of
building permits being for these accessory dwelling and it's all
these small movements and incremental value that's going to increase
our tax space, which is what we really need. We
need a bigger tax base, We need more people here working,

(46:54):
We need more workers, right, Like that's the big thing,
two hundred thousand workers, right, we need more young people
that want to live here and want to work.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Amen. Again today, polls are open till seven o'clock tonight
on election day up at the Barry Auditorium to vote
for Article one, which is a two point lots of
different bond votes here, there's mainly three the Central Vermont
Career Center, and of course Article two, the three point

(47:22):
three million needed to get the public Works building up
to up to code and the two point four million
dollars for infrastructure to support the Stevens Branch apartments. Seminary
Street is what we really know that to be, which
is thirty one flood resilient affordable housing units developed by

(47:46):
Downstreet Housing. It says here, bringing new residents to the
heart of the city, to increase vibrancy to shops, restaurants
and schools. Improved public parking, expanded green space, repaving on
West Street which is horrible. Debt service payments paid with
tiff generated from increased downtown property values, not as an

(48:11):
increase to the tax rate.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
So yeah, pretty important issues.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Yeah, really important stuff. I mean, people are and you've
heard this plenty of times. I don't need to tell you.
People are are alarmed right now by a lot of things.
The cost of living and inflation, and this is going up,
and that's going up, and the elderly here in our

(48:38):
state with aging homes are sewer and water rates. The
list goes on and on. We can't afford this, We
can't afford it. I'm already tapped out enough as it is,
and now you're asking me to increase my taxes even

(48:59):
more to support one hundred and forty nine million dollar
career center. I can't afford this.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, I think there's a ton of afooryability issues right
and and the issue is do we want to reverse
it or are we just going to continue down the
path that we're on. And the only way to reverse
it again, I would just point people to that Vermont
Future Project study. The data is all there. It just
shows we need a couple hundred thousand workers. What's it
going to take to get young people to move here?
Get young people to stay here?

Speaker 3 (49:28):
Right?

Speaker 2 (49:28):
I mean here, here's the thing. Like if you go
out and you try, like you have any project. I
just did this little I needed I needed a little
bathroom project. Done, right, You try to go find somebody
to do a little project, a little project.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
I know, we I talked about this yesterday.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
We try to get somebody to do a big project,
I know project. You know what's happened is we have
fewer workers than we've ever had. We've had a bunch
of federal dollars frankly from the flooding that really, you know,
like we got to five hundred dollars you go look
at I mean, you know, I love the I love
the downstreet projects. I love all these affordable housing projects,
you know, but they're like coming at five hundred and

(50:03):
fifty dollars a square foot, right, I mean that's where
we've gotten to. I'm building actively with my brother over
in New Hampshire, and I'll tell you all in our
costs are like two hundred dollars a square foot because
they don't have the labor crisis that we have over here. Right,
It's like there's just nobody to do the work, and
so they can cherry pick, you know, and good for them,
but we need more young people to come in here

(50:25):
to start businesses, to be well into work.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Gabe, are you a state Rep?

Speaker 2 (50:30):
I am not.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
You hold no political office I have.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
I'm on some I have some appointed positions that I
serve on.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Have you been under the Golden Dome at any point
recently to voice some of this?

Speaker 2 (50:50):
I mean, I've I've been, I've been over there. I
don't know that I've lobbied extensively. If that's what you're
asking now, you should. Yeah, I mean, we are having
some really good work done. I will say the legislature.
You know, again, this chip was a was a big deal.
The Act two fifty reform was a big deal. There's

(51:10):
some good work being done over there, but we certainly
we need more voices talking about that.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Yeah, I mean the comments that are coming in from
mounts becoming unaffordable to live in. We're trying to increase
our population, not force them out because of the fact
that it's unaffordable. We won't need workers because we won't
need to build anything exactly right.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
That's I mean, that's the other alternative, right, because we
just you know, who can afford to live here.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
What would you say if you had an hour to
sit down and have a cup of coffee with with
Phil Scott?

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Oh, that's a that's a great question. You know, it's
interesting watching the governor and watching the legislature and the
direction they've taken. And you know, you have from you know,
an outsider looking at I think we all look at this.
You know, we just talk about healthcare as an example,
or education is another good one too, But let's just
talk about healthcare for a second. We've got really good

(52:12):
data that says our hospitals are going to go bankrupt,
most of them, that services are going to be cut, right,
and what's being done, you know, and so the legislature
they there was a big bill that was passed last year.
I don't know that much. You look at, well what
got done? You know, there was an education bill that
was passed last year. Well what got done? Did we

(52:34):
actually do anything to make anything more affordable? And it
just seems like there's a there's a little bit of
fall the herd to you have to do something, like
we have to do something, and so like bad legislation
is better than no legislation. I don't know if that's
I don't know. I'm not over there, so I don't know.
I don't know if that's really the case. If we're
not actually saving money solving the problem, Like why don't

(52:56):
we take our time, why don't we work on something
that's you know, why don't we take a couple of
years and figure out what's really going to work instead
of passing bills? You know what's are we really going
to save any money out of the sede? We certainly
are going to consolidate some schools or certainly going to
have some school closures. We're certainly going to have some
hospital closures. Are we fixing the problem? There was something
in the healthcare bill reference based pricing, although it doesn't

(53:17):
come online for a couple of years, but that was
one thing that actually did get into the legislation that
that will affect affordability. So that piece was pretty.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Good reference based pricing.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Yes, the idea of reference based pricing is, you know, look,
Medicaid only pays a certain amount for or Medicare only
pays a certain amount for certain procedures. We will only
reimburse you some certain percentage over what that rate is.
We're not going to pay you any more than that.
So therefore hospitals and insurers figure out how to make
those numbers work. We're not going to overpay for procedures

(53:49):
that you're doing in Vermont, so that's part of it.
I think. I don't know. You know, again, I'm not
an expert on healthcare. I'm a housing guy. But you know,
I just think these are issues. I think we need
to continue to work on housing. We need to continue
to you know, Bolster. I mean again, there was a
great program the governor sponsored a couple of years ago,
missing middle. Uh, there was a program that they sponsored

(54:09):
ten percent for Vermont, which was to take some of
the state reserves and make them available at low interest loans,
all things that would be repaid, but low interest that
could make housing projects more affordable, you know. Continuing to
do those kinds of things, and then really we need
we need to look at what it's going to take
to attract talent.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Newton, you are, you're still with us. What would you
say to Phil if you had a chance to sit
down with him and chew the fat for an hour?

Speaker 3 (54:37):
That's a good question.

Speaker 4 (54:40):
But but I mean, I would I would encourage people
to well, there's lots of things I'd like to say
to Bill Scott, I guess, but but I would encourage
more of this auxiliary dwelling stuff. And I think that
that uh, you know, loosening the laws so that people
people can make better use of land that's already developed.

(55:03):
Is a it's a great idea. I mean, you know,
you know we're going to have a land, We're going
to have a house on two acres, you know, going
up and down a street. You know, every two acres
another building. You might as well just double it at
this point if you can. But because you know, it
prevents the sprawl problem that we had back when zoning

(55:27):
throughout the state. You know, thirty years ago was was
ten acre lots. So it ate up a whole lot
of former farmland with one little house on every ten acres.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Good stuff. Thanks buddy, Thanks for thanks for being with
us this morning, Pal, I appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Man.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Gayblo Geness is our guest this morning the Abundance Agenda Podcast.
How often are you shooting this thing?

Speaker 2 (55:59):
It just it's when I have an idea and when
I think I can get the right people together. So
I think it's been about every other week is what
I've done. I think the next angle I want to
go down is I want to talk to some tiny
home developers. Yeah, and actually put some product up so
people can kind of think about it. And and to
your guest point, it is true, right, the challenge of
the infrastructure and all that those costs. It's not cheap

(56:22):
like you can't again if you take you know, you
get a park model. That may be the cheapest sort
of option, but again it's not legal in most places.
If you're going to build a structure, you're going to
spend some money to do it. One of the shows
I had really got into the numbers and showed that, Look,
I mean, if the numbers work out there, probably it's
going to get funded. Right, You're going to be able
to get funding for that. But I want to I

(56:43):
want to show some product. Right, Let's get some cool
product up that people can kind of take a look
at and see who some of these developers are where
you might be able to get some solutions for stuff
like that. But I think that's the next series that
I'm going to work on.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Listen, Uh, today's your day to cast your vote. It's
election day locally here. I mean there's some really big
ticket items that are up for grabs here statewide, nationally,
we're going to be watching the forecast here is going
to be very interesting to see how things unfolded in

(57:22):
New Jersey and New York. By the way, we had
a report of some bomb threats at some of the
polling stations in New Jersey this morning, so hopefully they've
got that situation under control. But here locally, the auditorium

(57:44):
is open till seven o'clock tonight. Please get yourself up
there if you haven't yet, If you need a ride
reach out. There's plenty of folks in town that will
get you up to cast your vote. This is so
important again. Seminary Street. One of the big big ticket items.

(58:08):
Article one, the two point four million needed for infrastructure
to support that thirty one unit building, and Article two
three point three million to get our public works garage

(58:28):
up and functioning. Less than eight dollars a month, I
think is what our city manager, Nicholas stir Eli Castro
said on the air when he was here a short
time ago. There's some you know, there's some really big
things that are needed. Our water treatment facility. I mean,

(58:52):
the list goes on.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
I mean, you know, you look at the we drive around,
like you know, we see the infrastructure grades across the
United States. We got roads and bridges with d's. I mean,
I don't know how anything in Vermont gets anything button
a f like our infrastructure is terrible, and yeah it
takes investment to fix any of this stuff, But what
are we passing on to our kids? Like, it's just

(59:15):
crazy to me that we are not spending money on
fixing things that need to be fixed that we're doing short.
You know that we're not doing the right kind of engineering.
We're doing things that we know we're going to get
destroyed and going to need, you know, more millions of
dollars poured into them, do it right the first time.
You know that the Agency of Transportation does a great
job on the state highways, you know, but we're you know,
our municipalities don't invest the money. It's like, look guys,

(59:38):
it's going to get you like being cheap cost you
more in the end. Let's just invest what it takes
to have what is it that we want to build,
and let's invest what it takes to have what we want.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Fascinating to t I wish I wish we could hear
that echode a little bit more what you just said,
and that's why you started this podcast. I think your
your voice is is getting out there. You're you're already
getting people that are paying attention to the Abundance Agenda podcast,

(01:00:10):
and I think that's that's fantastic. Listen, man, you're my
microphones are yours. I know you got your own, but
I invite you to come back in here any damn
time you want. You're you're talking about some of the
most important stuff that our cities, our towns needs to

(01:00:33):
be discussing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Well, thank you. I appreciate that, and thank you for
the good work you're doing. I mean, you're, you know,
bringing a local voice to local issues every day of
the week. Pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Thanks, Thanks Gabe. I really appreciate your time. Man, come
back soon.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Let's let's see how things pan out here after today
sounds good, and see what the temperature is in another
couple of weeks. On housing, this issue is not going
to be going away.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Tomorrow, going away. We're not working our way out of
this doing tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Buckle up, my friend. You got a lot. You've got
a lot of stuff to talk about on the Abundance
Agenda a lot, and I look forward to following it
and listen into it. Catch it in the car, catch
it on the go, no matter where you are, if
you're if you're making dinner at night. Just turn it on,
have it on, listen, pay attention. Uh, this guy right
here is really shaking it up, and nobody else is

(01:01:30):
doing it here in Central Vermont. Gabe Lagins the Abundance
Agenda podcast. Check it out. Thanks so much. Man.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
All right