Good evening friends and neighbors,

Fall is here, ballots are arriving, towns are working through important land use decisions, and I am spending a lot of time preparing for the next legislative session. The photo above is from a recent visit I made out to the old Rawsonville School House which Jamaica is working to modernize and reuse – a very cool step back in time!

There are several things I want to make sure you know about this week.

There is a wonderful new documentary about longtime East Dover farmer Sonny Brown, who at 94 is still cutting wood, sugaring and showing up for his neighbors. The film Sonny: An East Dover Story is about work, family, community and the enormous changes rural Vermont has experienced during Sonny’s lifetime.

There was a showing today at MHCA Dover Cinema & Arts in West Dover and there is an additional showing Wardsboro October 8th at the Town Hall at 7 PM and on October 10th at the Dover town Hall.

And speaking of events unique to our district, Save the Date for the Gilfeather Turnip Festival Saturday, October 24, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Wardsboro.

Voting: Hear Directly From Deerfield Valley Town Clerks Wednesday, September 30 at 7 p.m. at Memorial Hall in Wilmington, town clerks Andy McLean of Dover, Therese Lounsbury of Wilmington and Rachel Colford of Whitingham are holding a nonpartisan community session about voting.

They will cover registration, early voting, mail ballots, absentee voting and what to expect at the polls. Bring your questions.

I continue to have confidence in the Vermonters who administer our elections. If you are confused by something you are hearing nationally, our local clerks are an excellent place to start. I will continue updating my Windham-2 Voting Guide as we get closer to November 3.

You can also check your registration, mailing information and ballot status through Vermont’s Voter Portal at vote.vermont.gov.

Windham Regional Plan The Windham Regional Commission is getting close to completing an important update to our Regional Land Use Plan.

The plan includes a new Future Land Use Map, required by Act 181, that will help shape where Act 250 jurisdiction may change in the future. Act 181 originally both reduced Act 250 regulation in some developed areas and expanded it in many rural areas. Much of the proposed rural expansion of Act 250 was repealed. The Tier 1 development incentives largely remain.

WRC updated the draft plan on September 23 and the maps again on September 25 after receiving comments from towns, the public and the Land Use Review Board. The full Commission will review the latest draft Tuesday, September 29. WRC maintains a comprehensive easy to navigate page on this update here.

Glasswing Questions In my last update, I told you Vermont is participating in the public sector version of Project Glasswing, an Anthropic Artificial Intelligence (AI) program giving selected governments access to powerful AI cybersecurity capabilities.

Since then, some truly extraordinary national headlines have reinforced just how important it is for Vermont to engage with extreme care, maximum transparency, and real collaboration across branches of government if/when adopting powerful new AI tools.

Reuters recently published a piece titled “Ten days that changed the course of AI.” It describes researchers and leaders at some of the world’s largest AI companies raising increasingly serious concerns about how quickly these systems are advancing and whether human oversight can keep pace.

One Anthropic researcher who recently left the company told Reuters, “There is no way to oversee them at the scale at which we’re training them.”

Anthropic’s own CEO has now called for slowing development of the most advanced AI systems to give safeguards time to catch up. Recent reporting has documented AI systems getting onto the open internet, accessing outside computer systems, hiding mistakes and taking actions their developers did not intend.

I am increasingly alarmed by what I am learning. I don’t want to scare Vermonters, but I also don’t want to downplay this. There are potentially significant benefits to these tools, including finding cybersecurity weaknesses before criminal hackers or foreign entities do. But the risks and accountability questions are also really serious.

Vermonters are entitled to answers to some basic questions, especially given the daily AI headlines and the lack of transparency about Vermont’s participation to date.

I asked the Legislature’s Joint Information Technology Oversight Committee (JITOC), which I serve on, to ask questions on who decided Vermont should participate and what did we agree to? What access does this technology have to state systems and information? And what safeguards and accountability are in place if something goes wrong?

JITOC will meet Wednesday, September 30, and will hear from the Agency of Digital Services, independent AI and cybersecurity experts, and Legislative Counsel about Vermont’s IT procurement process.

I’m hoping to learn more about what Vermont can gain from this technology and whether the safeguards, authority and accountability around its use are adequate and following Vermont rules and laws.

Energy

There was potentially very good news this week for Vermont. A federal judge ruled that the EPA illegally terminated the federal Solar for All program.

This is a $62.45 million program for Vermont, designed to help lower-income Vermonters access solar and lower their energy bills. Vermont has been fighting to restore the funding. This court decision is an important step

This connects to another issue I am watching closely: heating oil prices this winter.

We don’t know yet what those fuels will cost this winter. What we do know is that families who depend heavily on oil are exposed to national and global markets that Vermont has very little control over.

And this isn’t only a residential problem. Town offices, schools, libraries, fire stations and other public buildings need heat too. If fuel costs come in well above what was budgeted, that can put pressure on municipal and school budgets and potentially on property taxes.

This is also important context for work I have done in the past on a Clean Heat Standard. There has been a lot of political fighting over that policy, and I don’t think every proposal for implementing it has been right. But the underlying problem has not gone away:

How do we help Vermonters stay warm, use less fuel, make their homes more efficient and have more choices so they aren’t as vulnerable every time oil prices spike?

Weatherization, heat pumps, advanced wood heat and other options can reduce the amount of fossil fuel a household needs. Solar for All comes at the affordability problem from another direction by helping lower-income households reduce electricity costs.

High heating oil prices are a reminder that doing nothing doesn’t protect Vermonters from higher heating oil costs. Depending heavily on fuels whose prices are largely set outside Vermont is itself a financial risk.

If you think your family may need help, don’t wait for a heating emergency. Vermont’s Seasonal Fuel Assistance can help eligible homeowners and renters, and Crisis Fuel Assistance is available for heating emergencies. Fuel Assistance recipients may also qualify for free weatherization.

Flu Shots

There has been a lot of changing information about vaccines nationally, so I checked Vermont’s current guidance. For flu, it is straightforward: Vermont recommends an annual flu vaccine for everyone 6 months and older.

For most people, September or October is the recommended time, preferably by the end of October. People 65 and older, young children, pregnant people and people with conditions such as asthma, diabetes and heart disease are at greater risk of serious illness from flu.

Flu vaccines are available through health care providers and pharmacies. Vermont also has options for people who don’t have insurance or a primary care provider.

Upcoming Office Hours

• Wednesday, October 14, 6:00 p.m. – Visiting at the Community Gathering on Route 30 or, in the event of rain, at the Jamaica Town Office(second Wednesday)
• Thursday, October 15, 6:00 p.m. – Wardsboro Public Library(third Thursday)
• Saturday, October 17, 11:00 a.m.–noon – Dover Free Library(rescheduled from 10/3 but typically the 1st Saturday of each month)
• Saturday, November 7, 11:00 a.m.–noon – Dover Free Library(first Saturday)
• Wednesday, November 11, 6:00 p.m. – Visiting at the Community Gathering on Route 30 or, in the event of rain, at the Jamaica Town Office(second Wednesday)
• Thursday, November 19, 6:00 p.m. – Wardsboro Public Library(third Thursday)

If you need help with state services, please reach out. I do not have staff and I work year-round, so if you do not hear back in a day or two, please follow up or send a text. If you find my work useful and are able to support it, you can do that  here.

Thank you for staying engaged and staying in touch!

Rep. Laura Sibilia
Windham-2 District (Dover, Jamaica, Somerset, Stratton, Wardsboro)
Email:  lsibilia@leg.state.vt.us
Phone: (802) 384-0233

Sibilia Announces Campaign for Reelection to Represent Windham-2