Vermont

Alison Clarkson’s legacy in Vermont legislature – Valley News

Published

1 month ago

May 8, 2026

Alison Clarkson’s legacy in Vermont legislature – Valley News

WOODSTOCK — Alison Clarkson and Mike Marcotte started in the Vermont Legislature the same year, after winning election in 2004. Beyond that, they would seem at first not to have much in common.

Marcotte, a Republican, grew up in Newport, Vt., near the Canadian border, while Clarkson, a Democrat, grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., in a politically active family, went to Harvard and then produced theater in New York City before moving to Vermont in the 1990s. They’re from opposing parties at a time of growing partisanship, and it’s safe to say that where Marcotte is a steady, no-nonsense Vermonter, Clarkson is more outspoken, a live wire, even.

State Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Woodstock, greets a group of her supporters from Woodstock, including her campaign treasurer Ann Boyd, foreground, during a recess in the Senate during their visit to the state house in Montpelier, Vt., on Thursday, May 8, 2026 for “Alison In Action Day.” The group toured the building and watched proceedings from the Senate gallery before having lunch with Clarkson. JAMES M. PATTERSON / Valley News

“Alison’s flamboyant, to say the least, but her heart is in the same place mine is,” Marcotte said in a phone interview. She wants to help the people of Vermont and “when you’re working on the subjects that we’re working on, there’s no political divide there,” he said.

And so as chairman of the Vermont House Commerce and Economic Development Committee, Marcotte, R-Coventry, has worked closely with Clarkson, D-Woodstock, who chairs the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs.

For example, together with their committees, they developed the state’s new Office of Workforce Strategy and Development, an administrative agency overseen by the governor’s office.

But now after serving in the House for six terms and five terms in the Senate, this term will be Clarkson’s last. She will leave Montpelier after 22 years with a reputation for working doggedly for her constituents and for bridging a previous generation of lawmakers, particularly in the Senate, and a new, younger corps who are picking up the baton.

“Building trust and building relationships, that’s how you get things done,” Clarkson said. “You’ve got to take time to get to know each other.”

Marcotte, who also has decided not to seek a new term, has seen this belief, and Clarkson’s work ethic, in action.

“I just think that she’s done the job that she was elected to do, over and above what the expectations were,” Marcotte said.

A varied career

Clarkson first ran for the Vermont House seat representing Woodstock and Plymouth in 2004. She was 49 at the time and had two children in school. Her eldest, Ward Goodenough, was in boarding school, and William was at Woodstock Elementary, age 10.

To put the length of her career in the Legislature into perspective, both of her boys got married last summer. Ward is Windsor County State’s Attorney and Will works for Indeed, the job search website, in New York City.

Her career in the Statehouse has been varied, which has kept her going. “There is no same-old, same-old” in the Legislature, she said.

She served on the Judiciary Committee and on Ways and Means, which writes tax policy, in the House, and served two terms as majority leader in the Senate.

The Legislature’s achievements during her tenure were groundbreaking, including the 2009 passage of the state’s gay marriage law, and expanding a patient’s choices at the end of life, the so-called “death with dignity” law, which passed in 2013. The state also has tightened gun safety laws.

And much of this work was completed with women leading the Legislature. At one point, all four top legislative positions were held by women, Clarkson noted. She called it “the golden age of women in leadership,” in Vermont.

In recent years, Clarkson has been in the forefront of efforts to pass consumer protection laws, and to improve opportunities for working Vermonters through economic development, by virtue of her committee chairwomanship.

“I love the range of it,” she said of leading the Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee. The “general affairs” part of the title includes regulating alcohol and cannabis, labor issues and consumer protection, including data protection.

The state’s crises

But the list of issues that have resisted solution over the past two decades is long and consequential, topped by the cost of health care, the state’s fragmented education landscape, and the affordability crisis that has priced many young and working people out of the state, despite a desperate need for workers.

The difficulty of addressing these issues stems in part from Vermont’s small size up against global economic forces, Clarkson said. Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, has run on affordability over the past decade and there hasn’t been much improvement.

“There’s what things cost, that we have little control over,” Clarkson said. “Then there’s what people are earning.” Vermont underpays, she said.

That means residents who work remotely from Vermont at jobs in larger markets out-earn their neighbors who are reliant on the local economy. And housing, in particular, is part of a global market. This, too, is not a new problem.

“People with New York and Boston incomes are coming here and buying homes, which is driving prices higher,” Clarkson told the Valley News in October 2004, during her first campaign for the House.

Now, she said, “I have a son who’s trying to buy a house in the town he grew up in and it’s brutal.” Woodstock could use 300 units of housing right away, “and it would all be full,” she said.

Through her committee’s work, she has seen how time-consuming it is to encourage housing construction. A new housing law enacted last year, and measures under consideration this year, will take time to bear fruit.

Public education will likely have to undergo a form of regionalization at the middle and high school level, Clarkson said, and she suspects that some of the state’s small elementary schools will close or merge if they are no longer viable.

But she doesn’t see much appetite for a sweeping redrawing of school districts, either among the public or among lawmakers. There’s pressure to cut costs, but it’s also possible that, as high as the price tag may be, the state is spending what it should be spending on education, Clarkson said.

She was the first lawmaker to argue that the state shouldn’t be sending public education money to out-of-state private schools, a practice that was curtailed under Act 73, the sweeping education law enacted last year.

“My concern is that the Legislature could decide to spend less and rein in education spending to the point where it would be punitive,” Clarkson said. “I’m not sure we’ve found the sweet spot yet in the financial model,” she added.

Building trust

As much as she has tried to build relationships in Montpelier, she worries that there isn’t going to be enough trust built up among lawmakers to solve the state’s most pressing problems.

Since she started in the House, fewer lawmakers stay overnight in the capital, and there are fewer events where lawmakers get together, Clarkson said. It’s easier for people who get to know each other to work together and make deals.

“I would say the Legislature has not really made it a priority to build the relationships to move beyond partisanship,” Clarkson said.

Even so, the process still works pretty well, she said. Legislators have to meet in committee and get to know each other there. And everyone hears the same testimony, so they’re working from the same facts.

Being a legislator is a people-focused job, Clarkson said.

“If you aren’t genuinely interested in people and what their needs are, and how we solve the problems they face, you won’t last long in the Legislature,” she said.

While Clarkson is very much a joiner — her husband, law professor Oliver Goodenough, called her “naturally gregarious” — she can also come off as a forceful personality.

When she first met Clarkson, in 2016, state Sen. Becca White, D-Hartford, found her off-putting.

“She was such a starkly different political figure than anyone I had ever met,” White said in a phone interview. Clarkson is a “loud, in-charge type of person,” as White is herself, she acknowledged.

White, then a Hartford Selectboard member barely of legal drinking age, was interested in running for a vacant Windsor District Senate seat. Clarkson invited her up to the Statehouse for lunch.

White was the lunch, pretty much. Clarkson told her, ” ‘I’m going to go out there and I’m going to win it,’ ” White recalled. “I chose, at that point, not to run for Senate.”

She did later run successfully for the House, and for Senate in 2022. For White, and for Sen. Joe Major, who was elected in 2024, Clarkson has been a transitional figure.

When she reached the Senate in 2017, Clarkson’s colleagues in the Windsor District delegation were Dick McCormack, who retired last year, and Alice Nitka, two veteran Democrats. Both had been around long enough to cast votes for Act 60, the state’s landmark education finance law, in 1997, shortly before White turned 3.

“Alison is one of my most formative mentors,” White said.

And they’re good friends. Clarkson’s outsize personality makes it easier for White to be “a more authentic version of myself,” she said.

It helps, too, that Clarkson knows everyone in and around the Statehouse.

“She knows exactly who she is, and she works extremely hard,” White said.

With lawmakers like Clarkson, 71, and her collaborator Marcotte, 67, leaving the Statehouse, another generational shift is underway.

“I do see a lot of folks who are exhausted,” White said, particularly in the House.

The biggest change in her 22 years as a legislator, Clarkson said, was the volume of email. Sifting through and responding to it has made the job harder, the days longer.

Looking ahead

Clarkson realized in 2024 that she was facing her last term in Montpelier.

“I got to the end of the campaign and I just knew I didn’t want to have to campaign again, for myself,” she said in an interview at her Woodstock home.

Those last two words are important. While she’s leaving the Legislature after this term, Clarkson plans to stay engaged in politics and public life. She’ll help with other campaigns and stay involved in issues where she feels she has something to offer.

“The gift of this building,” she said in a phone interview from the Statehouse lounge, where she works until 11 or 11:30 most nights, “is you see all the opportunities and all the needs.”

Post-Legislature, Clarkson plans to take on one opportunity, establishing a new culinary school in Vermont, and one need, becoming a guardian ad litem.

Vermont is a farm-to-table state, Clarkson said, and has struggled to train people for its vibrant restaurant scene since the closure of the for-profit New England Culinary Institute in 2021.

“When NECI closed, we lost a very important workforce development pipeline,” she said. The school also brought students into the state.

Clarkson first learned of the guardian ad litem, or GAL, program when she was on the House Judiciary Committee. A GAL is a trained volunteer who represents children in court, particularly in cases of abuse or neglect.

Vermont currently has 278 GALs, but needs around 400.

“I think I could be helpful,” she said.

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Vermont

The University of Vermont is struggling. Will spending $175 million for athletics help? – The Boston Globe

Published

14 minutes ago

June 22, 2026

Press Room

The University of Vermont is struggling. Will spending 5 million for athletics help? – The Boston Globe

The request encapsulates UVM’s strategy to withstand the forces hammering higher education: Schools are closing; federal support is going away; and the shrinking population of college-aged young adults is leaving all but the most elite schools fiercely competing for students. This “demographic cliff” is a five-alarm bell higher education insiders have been ringing for decades, and UVM, the flagship school of a greying state, is feeling the heat. It is suffering through a $12 million budget deficit and expects the incoming class of freshmen students to decline by 15 percent this fall.

At this ominous moment, UVM is betting that athletic amenities, such as a bouldering wall, hydrotherapy pools, and a new basketball court, will help balance the scales.

Tromp ultimately got the state money and says donors have lined up an additional $51 million. (UVM still needs another $32 million for the renovations.)

Once completed, the project will transform the school’s athletic complex and create the largest indoor venue in Vermont, a 5,000-seat space for concerts, events, and sports games of all levels. There will be more gym space for students, shinier offices for coaches, and a hospitality suite for athletics donors. University officials estimate the improvements would double use of the facilities and serve both students and everyday Vermonters.

Yet more than anything, the project is a not-so-secret admissions ploy, as sports and the social culture around it become ever-bigger factors in where applicants decide to go to college.

The University of Vermont’s men’s soccer team won the national championship in 2024.Ben McKeown/Associated Press

“A lot of this is about enrollment needs,” said Dominique Baker, a higher education policy expert at the University of Delaware. “It’s about trying to ensure that if a student is admitted to both UVM and another institution, that Vermont has a fighting chance.”

This is not exactly a new phenomenon. Even in the ’80s, the so-called Flutie effect — named for Boston College football great Doug Flutie — illustrated how a single star athlete can drive a bump in applications. Sports powerhouses, including Alabama and Michigan, draw eyeballs and multimillion-dollar profits from athletics. And smaller local schools, including Stonehill, Nichols College, and the University of New Haven, have beefed up sports programs to lure students.

UVM is not expecting to challenge the powerhouses of the NCAA. It does not have a varsity football program, by far the richest of college sports, but is known instead for hockey and basketball. Its men’s soccer team is highly ranked, winning the NCAA Division 1 national championship in 2024, and skiing at nearby mountain resorts is a bonus for many applicants. A high number of UVM students, about 2,500 of 14,000, also play club sports.

But Katelyn Figueiredo, a member of the women’s soccer team, said fans at UVM games are mostly other athletes.

“The study body is less interested in traditional sports,” said Figueiredo, who is also a marketing intern for UVM athletics.

In a state with an aging population, UVM has long relied on recruiting students from outside Vermont. Currently, almost 80 percent of UVM students come from out of state, the highest share of any flagship public school.

But prospective students from elsewhere in New England are increasingly drawn to the tailgate culture and lower tuition costs of Southern schools. And losing them would be a crisis.

With little state funding, UVM already ranks among the most expensive public universities nationwide, at $70,000 a year for out-of-state students. Most of its revenue is from tuition, although nearly half of current students who are Vermont residents attend school tuition-free. Before 2024, the university had not increased tuition for five straight years.

While many universities have emphasized new amenities over the years, the expense of gyms and climbing walls inevitably adds to the ever-higher price for families, research shows.

The University of Vermont has less fitness space per student than its peer public universities in New England.Caleb Kenna for the Boston Globe

But at UVM, the recreational areas for students are a key weakness. Admissions tours skip the athletic facilities, and with just 7,500 square feet of fitness space, UVM lags other New England public universities. Students in surveys blast the facilities for being “antiquated” and “too crowded.” Some prefer to pay for private, off-campus gym memberships instead, according to a UVM student government resolution.

In a statement, university spokesperson Adam White called the renovation of the multipurpose center “essential to the high-quality campus experience today’s students expect.”

Strategically investing in recreational facilities is a way for UVM to attack its challenges, rather than give in, said Krista Trofka, a government and education expert at commercial real estate firm JLL.

“That being said, we are in something of an arms race related to athletic investment,” she said. “Is it fully sustainable?”

When Tromp, the UVM president, lobbied state lawmakers, she cited the small facilities in a recent decision to limit participation in a high school robotics competition. The Harlem Globetrotters told the school it may no longer be able to play there, she said.

Tromp recalled even musician Sting once joked that playing at UVM gave him a weird tinge of nostalgia.

“It’s been a long time since I played at a high school gym,” she quoted him saying in 1991.

Athletically speaking, the University of Vermont is perhaps best-known for hockey and skiing. The Boston Globe/Boston Globe

Upgrading the facilities has long been on UVM’s agenda. The school began construction in 2019, but the COVID pandemic interrupted the work. Steel beams for new buildings went unused, although UVM has completed some piecemeal updates in recent years, including revamping the locker room for hockey and adding training facilities.

In the May legislative hearing, UVM director of government relations Wendy Koenig estimated that, once the funding is in hand, the construction would take three years to finish.

“You can tell by what we’re saying this morning that we are motivated to get this done,” she said.

Until then, a banner near the existing basketball court that reads “the wait is almost over,” put up five years ago, is “a running joke on campus,” said UVM student government president Kennedy Connors.

“Like, when is the wait over?”

Meanwhile, UVM is cutting costs elsewhere. It reduced its annual budget by 3.25 percent this spring and chose to forgo raises for senior leaders. The university is also reevaluating its vast real estate portfolio in Burlington and rural Vermont. It had previously eliminated low-enrollment humanities classes.

Brit Williams, an associate professor of education at UVM, said she supports using state money for forward-thinking moves. She also noted the athletics complex will benefit Greater Burlington, which “does not have as many spaces and places to host events, to build community.”

“We can’t cut our way to a successful financial future,“ Williams said. “I cannot confidently say that [athletics] will be the solution. Not one thing will change the trajectory of our institution. But a bunch of small changes could help move the needle.”

The University of Vermont draws roughly 80 percent of its students from out of state, a higher share than any public flagship university in the nation.Caleb Kenna for the Boston Globe

And Vermont and its colleges need to make bold moves to galvanize shrinking cities and retain residents, said Kevin Chu, executive director of the Vermont Futures Project, a nonprofit think tank that promotes economic growth in the state.

Green Mountain, Goddard, and Sterling colleges all closed recently, and the Vermont towns around them are struggling in their absence. The school-age population in the state is also declining at an alarming rate.

In that sense, Chu said, $12 million is an investment in the next generation of Vermont talent. Given the state’s small size, even a small amount goes a long way.

“Part of the pitch is that the investment would yield returns for Vermont,” Chu said. “We’re either going to be a leader for what to do or what not to do.”

In the meantime, students such as native Vermonter Oliver Szott are excited for the changes. The success of men’s soccer boosted pride in Vermont sports, and games for Vermont Green FC, a pre-professional team that has its home matches at UVM, sell out “practically immediately,” Szott said.

For applicants to UVM, Szott can see how athletics would be a “differentiating factor” against other options, he said.

“Whether it will be successful in increasing enrollment,” he said, “that is yet to be seen.”

Diti Kohli can be reached at diti.kohli@globe.com. Follow her @ditikohli_.

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Vermont

How Vermont Became Ground Zero for the Anti-Israel Movement

Published

10 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Press Room

How Vermont Became Ground Zero for the Anti-Israel Movement

VERMONT — As her neighbors were on hour two of debating whether Israel was an “apartheid regime,” a Jewish mother in the audience sat in the back of the town hall, shaking.

“It was a visceral reaction,” she said.

Ten years ago, the woman and her husband left Israel to move to Bristol, Vermont—a 3,782-person town she described as the kind of place where you let your kids run outside barefoot and leave your doors unlocked. A child of the Second Intifada, she thought she had left behind the violence of the Middle East. But sitting in a folding chair, hearing words like land theft and occupied land of Palestine, the woman said she “no longer believed that I was safe.”

In early March, hundreds of towns across Vermont met for their annual town meeting—a tradition that stretches back to 1762. Bristol was one of nine considering a pledge condemning Israel as an “apartheid regime” guilty of “settler colonialism” and “military occupation.”

“The minute people hear I was born in Jerusalem, they stop listening,” the woman told the crowd. “You don’t have the lived experience to understand what really happens there and how difficult it is.”

“It’s a very, very complicated conflict,” she said. “My own dentist was an Arab from Jerusalem.”

She tried to tell them about the reality of Israel—how Arabs and Christians and Jews live there side by side, with equal rights. Her 80-year-old mother, she said, had spent the last weekend sleeping in a bomb shelter.

“Which one of you in this community who knows me, who knows my husband and knows my kids, have called or texted to check how my family is doing?” she asked. “None of you.”

“Oh, because it’s Israel, they’re the colonialists,” she said.

An hour later, at 11:01 p.m., the town passed the pledge.

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Vermont

VT Lottery Powerball, Pick 3 results for June 20, 2026

Published

21 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Press Room

Powerball, Mega Millions jackpots: What to know in case you win

Here’s what to know in case you win the Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot.

Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

The Vermont Lottery offers several draw games for those willing to make a bet to win big.

Those who want to play can enter the MegaBucks and Lucky for Life games as well as the national Powerball and Mega Millions games. Vermont also partners with New Hampshire and Maine for the Tri-State Lottery, which includes the Mega Bucks, Gimme 5 as well as the Pick 3 and Pick 4.

Drawings are held at regular days and times, check the end of this story to see the schedule.

Here’s a look at June 20, 2026, results for each game:

Winning Powerball numbers from June 20 drawing

16-20-44-48-50, Powerball: 15, Power Play: 2

Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 3 numbers from June 20 drawing

Day: 2-1-3

Evening: 8-4-0

Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Pick 4 numbers from June 20 drawing

Day: 5-9-6-0

Evening: 9-6-9-7

Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Megabucks Plus numbers from June 20 drawing

12-15-16-19-25, Megaball: 03

Check Megabucks Plus payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from June 20 drawing

01-10-16-30-31, Bonus: 04

Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize

For Vermont Lottery prizes up to $499, winners can claim their prize at any authorized Vermont Lottery retailer or at the Vermont Lottery Headquarters by presenting the signed winning ticket for validation. Prizes between $500 and $5,000 can be claimed at any M&T Bank location in Vermont during the Vermont Lottery Office’s business hours, which are 8a.m.-4p.m. Monday through Friday, except state holidays.

For prizes over $5,000, claims must be made in person at the Vermont Lottery headquarters. In addition to signing your ticket, you will need to bring a government-issued photo ID, and a completed claim form.

All prize claims must be submitted within one year of the drawing date. For more information on prize claims or to download a Vermont Lottery Claim Form, visit the Vermont Lottery’s FAQ page or contact their customer service line at (802) 479-5686.

Vermont Lottery Headquarters

1311 US Route 302, Suite 100

Barre, VT

05641

When are the Vermont Lottery drawings held?

Powerball: 10:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
Mega Millions: 11 p.m. Tuesday and Friday.
Gimme 5: 6:55 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Lucky for Life: 10:38 p.m. daily.
Pick 3 Day: 1:10 p.m. daily.
Pick 4 Day: 1:10 p.m. daily.
Pick 3 Evening: 6:55 p.m. daily.
Pick 4 Evening: 6:55 p.m. daily.
Megabucks: 7:59 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Millionaire for Life: 11:15 p.m. daily

What is Vermont Lottery Second Chance?

Vermont’s 2nd Chance lottery lets players enter eligible non-winning instant scratch tickets into a drawing to win cash and/or other prizes. Players must register through the state’s official Lottery website or app. The drawings are held quarterly or are part of an additional promotion, and are done at Pollard Banknote Limited in Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Vermont editor. You can send feedback using this form.

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