Rebecca Pitre is campaigning to represent my town of Cambridge in the Vermont House of Representatives. I support her candidacy.

Rebecca lives in the adjacent town of Waterville. She is running in the Lamoille-3 House District which consists of Cambridge and Waterville.

Rebecca’s campaign website explains her main issues: strengthen families, support rural communities, and combat despair. Her approach is grassroots, community based. This resonates with me. Too often our political leaders think the answer to every problem is more laws, more regulations, and more programs administered by Montpelier and Washington when often it is top-down government itself that is a major part of the problem.

Rebecca and her husband Tom Pitre moved to Vermont from Maryland. They first visited Vermont in 2005 after one of their children moved here. The next year they bought property in Belvidere, and in 2012 they purchased their current property in Waterville. Now two of their three children live in Vermont, and Rebecca and Tom have been living full-time in Waterville since 2018. Tom and Rebecca operated a construction business in Maryland, and they continue to find all the work they want in Vermont.

I took the photo at the top of this post outside the primary election polls in Jeffersonville on August 9th. (Jeffersonville is a village in the town of Cambridge.) Rebecca Pitre is on the right, in the blue jacket.

Dannie McFarland (on the left) and her young family moved to Cambridge from Virginia in 2019. Dannie works at Smugglers Notch Resort. Her husband (not in the photo) is in the Army National Guard.

Irving Payne grew up in New Jersey and lived in New York City and upstate New York before moving to Vermont in 1996. He has lived in this area since 2003. Irving and Lauri Paradis (next to him in the photo) bought their current home in Jeffersonville in 2018. Lauri, originally from St. Albans, works for a contractor for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Irving has worked for the Cambridge Community Center since it opened in 2016. He also does freelance video work and operates Modaja Communications.

Like me, Dannie and Irving and Lauri support Rebecca’s candidacy.

Like Rebecca, Dannie and Irving moved to Vermont from somewhere else. I am glad that they all chose to live here.

People who moved here from somewhere else sometimes tell me that they acutely feel their “outsider” status. As a member of a family that has been in Cambridge for generations, this bothers me. We should judge people as individuals on their merits, not by how long they have lived here. (And, in the first place, we should judge people as little as possible.)

Especially since becoming a selectboard member in 2017, I have tried to meet more people who moved here from somewhere else. It has been a pleasure to get to know Irving and Lauri, Dannie, and Rebecca and Tom.

I find that Rebecca brings common sense, compassion, wisdom, and perspective born of life experience to whatever she does. She is a good listener and a good thinker. She will be a valuable and effective representative in Montpelier for the people of Waterville and Cambridge.

Please join me in getting to know Rebecca Pitre and supporting her campaign: Rebecca for the House.

Update: More discussion in Why I Am Supporting Rebecca Pitre posted 10/30.