This week in the Legislature

Shaw resigns his House seat

by Paul Lefebvre

MONTPELIER — When the Legislature returns from its Town Meeting break there will be a change in who is representing the towns of Brownington, Charleston, Derby, Holland, and Morgan.

Representative Loren Shaw of Derby announced Sunday he will step down this month from the seat he has held for eight years.  The resignation is tied to the Republican lawmaker’s desire to shore up his finances and support his family.

“It’s all financial,” he said during an interview at the State House Tuesday.  “Only financial.”

The bottom line for Mr. Shaw is his family, and he nearly walked away from the State House a few years ago when his restaurant went out of business.  But he could find no one to replace him, and he has never regarded himself as a quitter.

“I like representing my people,” said the 66-year-old lawmaker, who drives a tour bus for a living.

For Orleans County Republicans it is the first time in recent memory that they have had to appoint someone to a seat.  And the timing of Mr. Shaw’s departure is not coincidental.

Republican Party members from the five towns will meet with County Chairman Chet Greenwood of Derby next week to prepare a list of names to submit to the Governor.  Mr. Greenwood said late Tuesday that Governor Jim Douglas is expected to pick a replacement by end of the month.

Mr. Shaw said he was going down swinging, and to political minds that means he will have a replacement by his side to introduce to the voters at Town Meeting.  Both Mr. Shaw and the party want someone with a political itch that wants scratching.

“Somebody who is electable and will run in the fall,” said Mr. Greenwood.  “Not someone who will finish off this term and walk away.”

Mr. Shaw said he expects to play a pivotal role in getting that someone’s name before the Governor.  He has a candidate in mind, but he declines to provide a name at this point in the process.  According to Mr. Greenwood, a minimum of three names will be submitted to the Governor.

Mr. Shaw said he is making a sound financial move, but it is a bittersweet one.

“I feel really, really, really empty,” he said.

A former stock car driver and airplane pilot, he said the feeling reminded him of the day he sold his airplane or watched his ’57 Chevy go down the road in the hands of a new owner.

Mr. Shaw, who once threatened to resign over a bill to legalize medical marijuana, said serving in the Legislature was one of his highest honors.  He compared it to the satisfaction of flying a state of Vermont flag to New York City after 9/11.

Mr. Shaw leaves the Legislature as  vice chairman of the Fish and Wildlife and Natural Resources Committee.  Among his finest moments as a lawmaker he counts keeping Home Health out of private hands, and helping Newport City comply with state stormwater regulations.

A member of the county’s staunchly conservative delegation known in 2000 at the Six-Pack, Mr. Shaw may have been the maverick of the group.  He took pride in doing things his way.  Still, he is tied to the ideological backlash that followed passage of the Civil Union bill in 2000.

“We all came over as Take Back Vermont,” said Representative Bud Otterman of Topsham, one of his Republican colleagues who shook hands and wished Mr. Shaw well Tuesday.

Legislature to fine tune current use

The question of how far current use should go to include ecologically significant land is now before the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

Testimony Tuesday before the committee took issue with a recommendation that would impose a cap on accepting marginal land into a program that was designed to tax land on the basis of use.

In prepared testimony, Jamey Fidel of the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC) said that the cap restricts land that should be included in the program.

As a member of summer task force created to review current use, he noted that an analysis expressed “concern that the goal of protecting natural ecological systems is not being specifically met because of the 20 percent rule.

“The 20 percent rule limits the enrollment of nonproductive lands (steep slopes and certain types of wetlands for example) to 20 percent of the enrolled land.”

Jim Shallow representing Audubon was more blunt: “Get rid of the 20 percent,” he told the committee.

Presently there are bills in both the House and the Senate.  Both bills came out of the task force study and its recommendation.  Of the two, the House bill appears more willing to keep the 20 percent recommendation intact.

For example, it would allow a participant in the program to keep up to 20 percent of the acres he is enrolling in a nonproductive state.

The 20 percent recommendation may have widespread support.  In testimony before the Senate Natural Resources Committee Tuesday, Darby Bradley, former head of the Vermont Land Trust, called the 20 percent cap, “an enormous step forward.”

Ed Larson, a lobbyist for Vermont Forest Products, guardedly supported the limit, saying first that the study “recognizes what we already do on the land” and adding that the cap “is a limit the industry needs.”

Overall, witnesses before the committee were supportive of the task force’s findings and recommendation, which offer few substantive changes to the current use program founded in the mid-’80s.

Amy Shollenberger, director of Rural Vermont, took exception to calling the program a tax break or benefit for farmers.  To tax land on its use value, she said, is a way to tax fairly.

Ms. Shollenberger also praised the practice of allowing nonresident landowners to enroll in the program, as it provides farmers with land they can afford to rent.

“Rental land is critical to the agriculture situation of Vermont,” Ms. Shollenberger said.

The committee is expected to rewrite the bill after taking more testimony.  Still uncertain is whether it will take up the issue of posting and the role it should play in current use.

None of the witnesses appearing Tuesday, including Tim Buskey of the Vermont Farm Bureau, spoke in favor of adding posting to the mix.  What does appear certain is that the committee will take a second look at including ecologically sensitive land to the program.

“The ecological value in land is very important to many of us in this room,” noted committee chairman Senator Ginny Lyons of Williston.  “We will be working in this area.”