For Immediate Release December 26, 2024 at 10am
CONTACT: Isaac Evans-Frantz, team@isaacforvermont.com
CAMPAIGN WEBSITE: IsaacForVermont.com
SOCIAL MEDIA: @IsaacForVT
Photographs by Eduardo Melendez: Please feel free to use these photos and credit Eduardo Melendez. 241214 Photos by Eduardo Melendez for Isaac Selectboard Campaign Announcement
BRATTLEBORO – On a blustery cold Saturday, December 14, standing with supporters in front of the Brattleboro Post Office on Main Street, Isaac Evans-Frantz announced his campaign for a one-year seat on the Brattleboro Selectboard. The election will be on March 4, 2025. Seeing the other side of the street bathed in warm sunshine, while he and his supporters shivered in the shade, Evans-Frantz invited everyone to move toward the light and quickly regroup across Main Street for speeches, songs, and distribution of campaign materials.
“During the coming difficult years,” Evans-Frantz, who was born and raised in Brattleboro, said, “Brattleboro needs a new leader who will stand up for all of us. The current selectboard has made decisions contributing to a potential 22% increase in property taxes. Most of our incomes are not increasing by anywhere near this amount. In a year where calls to the police for serious crime increased by 16%, the selectboard passed an ordinance that would fine building owners when some residents report crimes. The current selectboard, left unchecked, risks making life harder — and less safe – for people in Brattleboro.”
Evans-Frantz, who holds a Masters in Public Administration, describes himself as a progressive who puts fiscal responsibility first. At his campaign announcement event, he spoke of win-win solutions to make life better for downtown residents and visitors, citing the Brattleboro Food Co-op as an example. The Co-op had been experiencing frequent shoplifting and customers being harassed. An employee then started connecting with unhoused community members, offering slices of pizza, distributing cold drinking water in the summer, and hot coffee in the winter. Soon the rate of shoplifting fell from four or five thefts per day to fewer than one incident per week. Evans-Frantz stressed the need for this sort of collaborative approach in municipal policy-making as well.
Evans-Frantz praised the work of a collaboration between town government, law enforcement, and non-profit service providers. He also highlighted community-led responses to extreme poverty like the distribution of hot meals by Ian and April, a local couple that has been living out of a tent and serving hundreds of free meals on Sundays.
“My vision for Brattleboro includes a safe and vibrant downtown where residents and visitors alike feel welcome and comfortable,” Evans-Frantz said. “By working together across our differences to address people’s needs – including those of both business owners and the 3% of the town experiencing homelessness – we can build a better future for our town.”
“At this time when our rights and safety are under attack, we need to stand up for one another,” he continued, “While we may not be able to stop every bad policy nationally, we can stand together in solidarity locally – and make sure our policies actually make our town safer and more affordable. We won’t turn our back on the people who most need us in these darkest hours. No, we will not turn our back on the person who risked freezing to death last night here in our town. No, we will not turn our back on the woman experiencing sexual violence in this community. No, we will not turn our back on the LGBTQI+ community member who is worrying about being separated from their children. No, we will not turn our back on you. We will not turn our back on your community. That’s what this campaign is about: We are here together. We will show up for one another in the hardest hours of our lives. That is the kind of community that I want to live in, and that’s the kind of community many of you want to live in, and that’s why we keep showing up.”
But, he said, “There’s going to be a real urge in these next four years to pull back from public life and disconnect. There’s going to be a real temptation for others of us to throw ourselves in and try to rescue every person we can. We’re going to experience a whole lot more loss. More horrors are coming. But we can listen to our gut, and find people we trust, to build strong communities and a strong movement, and together we will build a resistance from Brattleboro. Because this is our country, and this is our town.”
Event speakers included Lisa Cox, who served with Evans-Frantz on the Vermont State Board of Education, which oversaw an $886 million annual budget at the time.
“Isaac and I don’t agree on everything,” Cox said, but, she continued, “I want to see Isaac on the selectboard because I know he’s the kind of person who believes that everyone’s voice matters, everyone’s experience matters, and when he serves on the selectboard, he’s the kind of person who’s going to listen carefully to everyone.” She said she trusts him “to bring to that board the kind of respect and care for the process and for the community which is what I want on the selectboard.”
Local resident and community leader Adriana Negrón said, “I feel very strongly that Isaac is going to embody the spirit of Brattleboro, and why our family decided to move into this community.” She continued that she trusts Evans-Frantz will build on positive initiatives and efforts in town, and concluded, “He is going to bring that energy we need.”
Voters can learn more about Isaac Evans-Frantz and his vision for Brattleboro at IsaacForVermont.com.
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Isaac Evans-Frantz he/him
Candidate for Brattleboro Selectboard
isaac@isaacforvermont.com
