By David Van Deusen*
We, in each of our towns, and throughout Vermont are, together, a community. As Town Meeting approaches, I trust that all of us, regardless of your particular political persuasion, agree. And as a community we do well to agree that one does well, when one’s neighbor does well. This commitment to our friends, family, and fellow residents is old one. When the Green Mountain Boys evicted New York land surveyors, tax collectors, and sheriffs, I do not doubt that they too were motivated by this notion of self-preservation as inalienably linked to community; Freedom and Unity. More recently, we saw this belief manifest during the crisis following Irene. Such acts of human solidarity will never be forgotten. In essence Vermont has a long and proud history of people reaching out in solidarity when their neighbors could use a hand. We are, in a word, a people who embrace and honor the core value associated with the very notion of community as the foundation upon which rests the prosperity of the individual.