Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: I didn't get one. I need to

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: say Well, Tony's a glass

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: of water.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: I'll go everybody. Sorry.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: So this is a joint hearing between the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee and the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs. And so today is 02/05/2026 at eleven in the morning. So we're joined by various members from the outdoor economy. We're happy that we're happy to have you all here, and we understand there's about a 100 people downstairs watching this live. So we're happy that you came to the State House today, and we're happy to hear what you have to say. Maybe before we start, we'll let our committees introduce themselves. I'm Mike Marcotte. I'm from Coventry, and I chair House Commerce and Economic Development.

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Edie Granning. I represent Jericho and Underhill, and I'm the vice Chair of Commerce today.

[Rep. Kirk White (Rochester, Stockbridge, Hancock, Bethel; Ranking Member)]: Hi, I'm Kirk White. I live in Bethel and represent Rochester, Stockbridge, Hancock in Bethel, and I am the ranking member.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I'm happy Duke. I represent the part of Burlington that the most recreational opportunities

[Nick Bennett (Executive Director, Vermont Mountain Bike Association; Chair, VT Trails & Greenways Council)]: Oh, okay.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: Because I'm just I'm not competing with you.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: I haven't been to the kingdom.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: Don't even try. Just in comparison to the rest of the world. I'm Emily Karasduchen. I represent part of the Deerfield Valley, Southern Vermont's wonderful recreational area. So I represent Wilby to Whitingham and Alex.

[“Herb Olson” (as transcribed; district listed: Bristol, Lincoln, Monkton, Starksboro)]: Herb Olson, representing Bristol, Lincoln, Moncton, Starksboro, and Northeast Madison County. Right up next to the Greenspanics.

[Rep. Monique Priestley (Bradford, Fairlee, West Fairlee)]: Morning, Priestley. Bradford, Fairley West Freely.

[Nick Bennett (Executive Director, Vermont Mountain Bike Association; Chair, VT Trails & Greenways Council)]: Dave Bosch. I'm from Clarendon representing Longford Clarendon, West Rutland, and the larger portion of Rutland Town, retired from the exporters.

[“Tony Micklas” (as transcribed; district listed: Milton, Georgia)]: I'm Tony Micklas. I represent Milton, Georgia. And since we're all toting our trail stuff, we have one of the few ADA accessible trails in the state.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden]: Tom Chittenden. I represent 11 communities in the Southeast area of Chittenden County.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Alison Clarkson, chair of Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs. I live in Woodstock where we 30 miles of trails accessible to green.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: And we have one of our great

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: outdoor rec people representing us today, which is very exciting. We are our committee, David Weeks, will be joining us momentarily from Rutland. And, yes, Windsor County is full of great outdoor recreational opportunities, as are all our counties, which is why this is a $2,000,000,000 industry now and growing, and we are so excited to hear from you today. We have included the outdoor recreations ask of $200,000 for an economic impact study in our economic development bill. That is in our draft at the moment, and so we are hoping we will hear direct testimony about that today.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: So, Nick, good morning.

[Nick Bennett (Executive Director, Vermont Mountain Bike Association; Chair, VT Trails & Greenways Council)]: Morning. Yeah. So I'm Nick Bennett. I'll do my introduction. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Mountain Bike Association. I'm also the chair of the Vermont Rails and Greenways Council. Well, I'll start off. First and foremost, I just wanna thank out the committee for being here today. We understand you have a lot on your plate, and I'll reference that in a second. It is certainly challenging time. But we know here everyone is obviously has a great deal to say about outdoor recreation and deeply appreciates the value it plays, in Vermont. So thank you for your time, and thank you for your attention today. And I do wanna recognize that it's a challenging time in this team. We understand and respect that. From challenges to democracy to climate driven natural disasters to the fiscal pressures the state is facing, we respect those and know that there are serious problems ahead and and deeply respect the world that the legislature is playing and trying to solve those problems. But with that owner's preamble, we're here today and really outdoor rec in '20 for 2026 is framed with outdoor recreation and the outdoor recreation economy being a solution or a partial solution to those problems. We're here to to work with you and speak about ways and showcase communities and projects that help highlight ways that we can bring Vermont together and help to address some of those challenges. So outdoor rec, we really view as a bright spot from the skiing that this winter has been phenomenal to the accessible recreation that some folks have seen. There's a photo of some of the adaptive assessments we've been doing on our mountain bike trails to our incredible, waterways, and to the fact that over 90% of Vermonters, 93% in the move forward together Vermont data participate in some form of outdoor recreation. This is not a divisive issue. This is something that unites Vermonters in addition to providing economic and ecological value. And so today, we're gonna talk really about the economic engine that outdoor recreation provides, and our our testifiers today will will touch on different projects and their experiences that that do just that. Alison already mentioned that Vermont contributes over, $2,100,000,000 to Vermont's GDP. That's nearly 5% of the the the overall GDP in Vermont. That's second only in the nation behind Hawaii. So outdoor rec has an enormous toehold in our in our economy. There are more than 16,000 jobs directly as a as a result of outdoor recreation in Vermont, And we know that and Heather spoke about it earlier today. Heather Helm, the commissioner of the farm tourism, she spoke, she spoke about today that of the 16,000,000 or so annual visitor visits here in Vermont, almost 40% are driven. Their primary purpose to come here was for outdoor recreation. So there are it's an enormous anchor for people coming here. For a personal story, I used to live in Washington State, I moved here in part driven by in large driven by recreation, that proximity recreation, that Vermont provides. I wanted to take a minute to talk about public investment, which, in addition to the, we'll talk about the economic impact study in a moment. One of the real tremendous drivers of outdoor recreation over the past few years in Vermont has been the Vorek community grant programs. That was a program launched in 2019 with a few with a handful of grants, tens of thousands of dollars, and essentially exploded or greatly accelerated through the pandemic. Over the years 2022 and 2023, we saw over $11,000,000 in projects, I think 80. So projects across the state invest in directly in communities, and those grants were eligible for communities and nonprofits. Those are the two big big green bars you see. The other programs shown here are other grants administered by the state that are pretty vital, not necessarily comprehensive. We do have grants like the building and, general services grant program, but this also looks at RTP program, which provides vital funds to trails, and the land and water conservation fund, which helps protects lands permanently for for recreation access and upgrade facilities. But the real story that we're focused on today because of the nature of the grants and economic development is the Vorai grant program. So those were two bumper years in terms of investment. Since then, though, we've been in a drought, a three year drought of any investment in new Vorak grant, opportunities, and that certainly comes hard for the for the communities and organizations that applied for grant funding in 2022 and 2023 are those that applied for project development support with the idea that the additional funds would be coming to help actually with project implementation. So we're very excited to see that this year, the governor's recommended budget has $500,000 in it for another round of Vorak community grants. And as a community, we're really hopeful that that can become a perpetual or dependable, a consistent source of funding, and not not in a handout capacity, but in an element that is a way that will help develop and thrive. It really investments in Vermont's economy to to continue to grow that visitor spending and and help our state thrive. So to talk a little bit about the other active proposals that are out there just to so the committee here is aware of of things that that are we're keen to see and wanted to speak a little bit about. I mentioned already the $500,000 in the governor's recommended budget. Again, something that our entire community is really excited to see, and you'll hear from several grant recipients shortly. Senator Clarkson also mentioned, a bill she introduced for the s three twenty seven that has $200,000 for a modern comprehensive outdoor recreation impact study. And we're quite excited about this, particularly from the outdoor recreation stewardship perspective. The last study of any kind of this nature we have is a decade old now, and it only looked at a handful of assets at that point in time. What we're really excited to build this around and to through the Vorak, through leadership of Vorak is really thinking about this as an investment tool focus. There are reports out there, as I noted, the numbers I spoke to earlier, this $2,100,000,000 of of impact is great. A, that that that data is dated. It's from 2023. That's relying on the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a national agency to provide that data. They haven't done it for 2024 given federal government shutdowns, you know, loss reductions in force. But what it doesn't actually provide a lot of action inside. It doesn't tell us the levers we can pull and the benefits they will provide to Vermonters and the Vermont economy. And those some specific examples here, we've seen in the summers of 2023 and 2024, the need to upgrade our recreation infrastructure for climate change. We need an outdoor recreation impact study that helps us understand where the greatest risks are, where the threats are to our economy, and how to make those investments in ways that are prioritized, and we can start to upgrade infrastructure and support, the stewardship and businesses that rely on those infrastructure. We also, in Vermont, over 70% of the public access trails in Vermont are located on private land. Those are graciously hosted by private landowners who receive absolutely no benefit for doing so. That's a huge proportion of our economy that's real that's sitting on the backs of those private landowners. And so this this study could also help us understand their motivations, concerns, explore ways, and and other states that are working to better secure access on private land. So another key thing that study could form. And the last thing, will speak a little bit about Move Forward Together Vermont, which is a tremendous plan that the community has rallied around for a set of priorities for outdoor recreation. We don't have the data to support which of those priorities do we pursue and what ways now. So what we're asking for this study is to help us inform where do we prioritize investments that'll help best achieve those outcomes, understanding economic return, thinking about this outdoor recreation economy really as a business and as a driver for Vermont. Other things that are really exciting that are out there just to make sure that are on the radar, the Vermont conservation plan is in development. Act 59, the community resilience and biodiversity protection act last year cast the die to create this Vermont conservation plan. Outdoor recreation is at the table. There are two stakeholders in the technical advisory committee, and it's a dedicated pathway within that plan right now to promote outdoor recreation. So we're working hard to see that outdoor recreation is truly harnessed as a driver for land conservation and as a way to connect people, in equitable ways and accessible ways to those those conserved lands. So that's taking shape that we're excited to be a part of. As you hear later too, there's a task force now that there are in h in H 883, envisioned to form a task force to make permitting more transparent, speedier, less cumbersome. We heard this morning in the the caucus for the economy about some of the permitting challenges the state faces. Well, you'll hear about that in a little bit as well, and the desire to have efficient and effective regulation that that works for everybody but also allows timely way for projects. So our collective needs, and this is as we really as a community look, and and we're fortunate to have many partners organizing this day. There's the Trails and Greenways Council. There's the Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance. There's VOREC. And as we look across our kind of collective community, there's a couple of things that we see as vital to really accelerating and continuing to help this outdoor economy flourish. One is stable, consistent, and flexible funding for outdoor recreation. As I mentioned before, it's wonderful to see VORAC funding back in the budget their proposed budget. We'd love that to be a dependable, consistent, sort of example of how that funding can can proceed. We'll hear a bit more today about the need for workforce development and training program programs to ensure that we have the skilled workforce in both in the business sector and the stewardship sectors to support these activities. The need for predictive predictable and efficient regulation. We'll hear about that a little bit later, but the importance of that, projects being stalled, delayed, and then, you know, ultimately missing funding opportunities or or seasons because of it. And then smart land use and conservation policies. There are things in play this, that are we know about act two fifty reform, tier three regulations. We'll hear a little bit about that, and also the benefits, as I mentioned before, the Vermont conservation plan being able to actually really harness outdoor recreation and create kind of a next generation of access and protected lands, for Vermonters to enjoy. So I'm I'm mainly just the tee up guy for the most part. You'll hear a little bit in here. I'll pass the mic in a moment to Kelly Altman, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance. We'll hear from Jackie Dagger, the program manager for Vorak. We'll hear from Jeff Alexander and Drew Pollak Bruce about an adaptive impact recreation impact study they've conducted that really highlights the a specific sliver of of impact. Hear hear from Alex Rasicotte of the boot for skiing pro from a business perspective. Jess Brody will speak from b r from BRPA's municipal recreation lens. We hear from Lindsay Deloria at both, particularly on some of these permitting and development challenges, and then we'll close out with your constituent, senator Clarkson. Nick will talk to us about what's going on down at Woodstock And Resort and and their perspective as well. And I think with that, I can pause if folks have questions, but I'll go be handing in a moment to Kelly Alt, the director of the Vermont Outdoor

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Business Alliance. Any questions?

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Alright. Thanks. Good tea up.

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Hello, thank you for having me. Kelly Alt, Executive Director of the Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance. As was just teed up very well, the economic engine for the state is Vermont's outdoor sector. This is a highly diversified set of outdoor businesses and organizations that encompasses global to local enterprises. They're anchored in our downtowns, our villages, our rural communities. And these businesses and organizations range from resorts and lodging, which are curating inviting destinations for visitors and Vermonters, trail builders and nonprofit organizations managing the places that we recreate, specialty retailers, guides and educators creating our experiences, manufacturers spurring gear and apparel in innovative ways, excuse me, photographers and filmmakers telling our stories, and professional business services keeping the wheels turning. As much of this as this outdoor sector supports our economy, it gives back to the stewardship of our natural and recreational assets, accessible participation in the outdoors, and equity in the workplace, and ensuring municipalities have what they need to invest in their outdoor economy. These outdoor businesses, which are important revenue generators, as well as employers of Vermonters, they do face unparalleled uncertainty in this time. To name just a few of the impacts that they faced in the last year, the cost of tariffs, decline in Canadian visitation, a drop in consumer confidence due to the state of the economy, a loss in federal funding, impacts from climate change and threats to democracy and Vermonters. Any one of these could jeopardize their value as taxpayers and hinder their abilities to recruit and retain the workforce in our urban and outdoor communities. A few testimonials from your regions. From Washington County, tariff driven increases in the cost of the products we sell has led directly to our reducing our full time staff by 27%, reducing our community events and our general sense of unease. From Chittenden, we had a 50% decrease in Canadian visitors renting bikes this year. From Windsor, flooding two years ago caused $750,000 worth of damage and closed our business during the key summer season. From Memorial, key training issues key training areas would include a basic understanding of climate, how to manage energy more efficiency, and how climate related risks affect our operations and our costs. We applaud the ongoing investments that the legislature has made in the outdoor sector because of the return on investment, which is so clear. We've heard from businesses that the need continues to be urgent. The outdoor sector supports the proposals that were aligned earlier in the presentation, as well as investments in business and workforce development that we know will help the sector be stable and thrive in the future. We appreciate your consideration for investing in financial and technical assistance to small and mid sized companies at all stages of development for their strategic planning, market analysis and resiliency measures, which will help them be stable and collaborate during this time. And secondly, we support the forthcoming recommendations of the Climate Outdoor Workforce Initiative included in the Vermont Resilience Implementation Strategy, as well as supporting outdoor recreation programming through our CTE system, the Career and Technical Education System, as outlined in S313. Thank you for your time and your support today.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Thank you, Kelly.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: Question is?

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: When looking at the CTE system, have you had conversations with the CT any of our CTE directors? And I think are you talking in the adult side of CTE or both?

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Over the last four years, VOBA and partners in the outdoor sector have worked with specific CTE programs. Linden Institute is a gold star with their project bike tech, their ski technician, their outdoor ed programming. And others have been contacted to promote our skill workshop around technical occupations in bike, ski and trail with CTE directors in those regions. And there's a lot of promise for us to continue building those relationships and seeing the CTE systems as a resource, not only to expand the programming that we need, construction, engineering, technical occupations, as well as in natural resources, but also to support some of the industry and opportunities that are unfolding.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Right. I guess all of us would encourage you also to engage with adult CTE, which this is perfectly suited for this world.

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Thank you. And we do have testifiers in Senate education on CTE this afternoon.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: Perfect. Thank you. And next, I'll turn it over to Jackie.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Know, Woodstock is so well represented.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: Alison and I know each other from when I was a kid. After our cheering for George Perkins Marsh last night. Yeah. Yeah, we've been a day. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you all for having us. I'm really excited to be here. I'm Jackie Dagger, and I'm the program manager for the Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative. And I'm here to tee up the other speakers that you're going to hear from today, but also to talk to you about Move Forward, Together Vermont, our strategic vision for outdoor recreation economy in the state for the next five years. And in the spirit of kicking off the other speakers, I thought I'd take a pause and ground us and share a story with you to help underscore the importance of Move Forward Together Vermont to Vermont's outdoor recreation economy. I was lucky to spend a weekend last month with a close friend and a group of women staying at Grout Pond Hut, which is managed by the Vermont Huts Association. If you've been to this hut, you know it takes at least a mile to reach and you have to carry in all of your food, supplies and equipment. The women in our group had varying levels of experience and comfort with hauling in supplies, spending time outdoors in the snow, and using skis and snowshoes. And as an added layer, we didn't all know each other. My friend took in the initiative and did something I think is a good marker of any outdoor excursion. She helped us create a plan. Before we embarked on our trip, she asked us for input on things like food, shared supplies, travel plans and activities we wanted to do together. And using our feedback, she shaped a plan and shared a list of actions we could take to make sure our trip was successful. She also shared information with us about the hut and the surrounding trails to set our expectations and help us plan our own adventures. Having a plan also helped us adjust. A couple of days ahead of time, we actually found out that the day we were going in was supposed to be negative 10 degrees. There was a severe weather warning. So you can imagine with a group of people who don't know each other very well facing a somewhat uncomfortable situation, having a plan in place really helped us to see what we needed to do to be prepared, have some supplies, and also adjust our plan to make sure that if anyone was running behind, they were left out in the cold. Having a plan helped everyone. No matter the ability or experience, show up prepared, lead activities for the group, and adjust quickly to any changes or challenges while remaining aligned in our vision for the weekend to have fun and break together in the outdoors. So why am I sharing this experience with you? It's not just because I love the outdoors and the beautiful places that we have here in our state of Vermont or even because it's outdoor recreation day, which I'm really excited you all are hearing from us today. It's because plans are important. And last year, we launched Move Forward Together Vermont on Outdoor Recreation Day. So it's been about a year that we've had this plan, that we've been working on implementation. And I'm just going to change my slide. So Move Forward Together Vermont was informed by eighteen months of planning and outreach with input from over 2,500 people. You can see the plan up on the slide. Establishes a vision to foster healthy and vibrant communities through outdoor recreation. It lifts up two common objectives of equity and climate resilience, and it shares 19 priority actions under the themes of stewardship, wellness and economic development. Move Forward Together Vermont gives us a common direction and path to strengthening outdoor recreation economy in our state, no matter where we're coming from and allows us to show up with common goals in mind. It also helps us to see solutions and navigate challenges as they arise. Since launching Move Forward Together Vermont last year, we've been moving forward with implementation. And I'm really excited to celebrate a couple of projects that are now underway. The first project is the Climate Outdoor Workforce Initiative or COWI. You might have seen a press release recently about this project. It's being led by the Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance in partnership with the Agency of Natural Resources Climate Action Office, the Vermont Department of Labor, Vermont Office of Workforce Strategy and Development, as well as Vorak. The project focuses on strengthening the capacity of Vermont's current outdoor professionals while attracting new workers into careers essential to climate adaptation and resilience.

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: I also want to lift up the Trail Accessibility Hub. This is

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: a project supported by the Vermont Trails and Greenways Council in partnership with Vermont Adaptive Speed and Sports, Vermont Mountain Bike Association, the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, Northern Forest Canoe Trail and Community Geographics, as well as trail users. And this project is designed to address the challenges people face when seeking to build or use accessible trails in the state of Vermont. And it was also funded through a GORD community grant. Lastly, I wanna highlight the Vermont Board Toolkit, or standing for Community Outdoor Recreation Economy. This was a project led by the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing in partnership with VOREC. And the intention is to help communities at the local level with tools to understand and assess data about the economic impact of outdoor recreation and fill in the gaps that we know exist in the national level data, because we know we get that national level data from BEA on an annual basis, but it doesn't necessarily tell us a whole lot about the economic impact in our local communities. So these tools are intended and designed to help those community leaders do that assessment and build talking points and an understanding of what exists to help prioritize projects and make really well informed investments. This toolkit is also brand new. It's set to launch in March. So we're planning a webinar and we'll have more information about that soon. So these are a few examples that Vorax has been involved in, but there are many projects being planned through our partners that are aligned with Move Forward Together Vermont. I'm really excited to turn the floor over to the other speakers and have you hear from them and their stories. And many of them are recipients of the Vorick Community Grants Program as well. So thank you, and I'd love to answer any of your questions.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Thanks,

[Bob Cogut (Mad River Valley Recreation District)]: Jackie.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: And next up is Bob Sorry. I'm gonna put you in hand. I'll let you introduce yourself.

[Bob Cogut (Mad River Valley Recreation District)]: Hi. Good morning, everybody. My name is Bob Cogut. I'm representing the Mad River Valley Recreation District. We were recipients of one of the Borac grants. Think 2022 was the year we got it. Well, my day job is an engineer. That has nothing to do with the outdoor economy. But my volunteer job is I'm the board president for the Mad River Riders, which is a chapter of the Mount Mudbeck Association. So this grant was actually a collaboration of a number of volunteer organizations within the Valley decided to apply for this grant to build a recreation hub within the valley. In the Mad River Valley, we have a really outdoor recreation oriented economy, but it's heavily tilted towards the winter. We're the home of Sugarbush and Mad River Glen. And our summers have been kind of picking up and there's interest. We have great assets in the summer. We have a great trail network. We have beautiful rivers, swimming holes. But that economy, the level of that economy, the level of those visitors doesn't match the winter. So purpose, one of the main purposes of building this recreation hub and using these work funds was to kind of bolster our off season economy. Off season for us is summer. So what we did with the money was we, well, the the purpose of this recreation hub is to try to connect the trails network that we have, those outdoor assets, to the town. So right now, like in our we have a trail network that spans across the whole watershed of the Matador Valley, you know, four four four or five towns. Trailheads are all at different locations. You know, people come in, they go to a different trailhead, they kind of do their thing and they they may hang out in town, they may not, they may leave. So, we're trying to build kind of a central location at which people can kind of begin their outdoor activities or adventures. That will benefit kind of the local businesses, especially into the kind of the commerce center of Weeksville Village. So using the grant we got from this, we built a trail bridge. We built about a 200 foot long bridge in total. So it was an 88 foot bolstering truss steel bridge, which was really fun to install. It came in two tractor trailers in two pieces, and we hired a crane to kind of drop it in place. We had to bolt the two halves together. A ton of fun. We also did trail improvements that kind of led to that bridge. We built a municipal parking lot at the same center near where the bridge is And we've kind of helped our local sorry, business association, forgetting the name for those things, build out this welcome center in this recreation hub. So now we have this kind of this hub center that that kinda draws our outdoor visitors into more of a central spot in their village, gets easy access to the trails, and we're hoping that's gonna be a that's a key part of the infrastructure. It's gonna help us build our kind of summer economy. But as part of a larger plan, this rec hub is is right at the center of the village. We are connecting that rec hub to community south and north by a couple different means. We're working on a public path to go the length of the Mad River from Warren Village all the way to Middlesex, which will pass right by this recreation hub. So we want to have off road kind of alternative transportation for local school kids who'd like to work for locals to just kind of get out and and and exercise, and and for visitors, of course. So this piece, this work we got done with Vorak led directly into that larger vision. Last thing I'll say about it is the money we got from this Vorak grant really leveraged an awful lot of volunteer hours. Most of the groups doing the actual work are mostly volunteers not getting paid, you know, to the point where even like the the footings for that steel bridge were dug by me and one of the landowners by hand. Got a bunch of 20 to carry the concrete across the creek. So for relatively little money, we were able to put a lot of infrastructure in place by kind of leveraging those nonprofits. So I think it's a great model.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Any questions? Great.

[Bob Cogut (Mad River Valley Recreation District)]: Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: And was it your RDC that was helpful, your regional development corp?

[Bob Cogut (Mad River Valley Recreation District)]: When I was searching for it, Chamber of Commerce.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Oh, Chamber. Searching for it. Right.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Yeah. Those are our two.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Thank you. Together here. Oh, come on.

[Nick Bennett (Executive Director, Vermont Mountain Bike Association; Chair, VT Trails & Greenways Council)]: You want two of us

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: to talk. We're texting. We're texting. Good. Thank you for having us here.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: He was one of our storytellers last night. Perfect.

[Bob Cogut (Mad River Valley Recreation District)]: Yeah. Oh, those are my slides.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Oh, yeah. Sorry. All right. Let's go back

[Nick Bennett (Executive Director, Vermont Mountain Bike Association; Chair, VT Trails & Greenways Council)]: to this.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: So there's the hub.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: That's okay. You were so illustrative in your

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: that's an amazing trail, by the way.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: That is Oh, it's beautiful. Oh, it's a nice bridge.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: And if you notice the back end of it is wide enough so adaptive picks can go around and make that corner. That was thoughtful.

[Bob Cogut (Mad River Valley Recreation District)]: And then there's So that's the future of.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Right. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: And we need to

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: do a field trip.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: I'm anyone by myself.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Oh, you're welcome to join me. I'm thinking about yeah.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: There you go. Go for it.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Alright. So my name is Jeff Alexander. I'm with Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports. I'm our director of strategic partnerships and business development. I'm also an adaptive mountain bike instructor and adaptive snowboard instructor and hail from Tinmouth, Vermont, your area. I've been there about twenty years. That is South Of Route 4 Corridor. Not that love gets thrown down that way, but we at Vermont Adaptive, we have been around for thirty eight years. At this point in time, we're planning our fortieth celebration next year. Last year, we provided 5,757 individual recreational outings throughout the state of Vermont. That is four seasons, skiing, hiking, biking, paddling, sailing, and sailing center. Summertime, we have traveling fleets. In the wintertime, we're at, five different resorts. This year, we just acquired, and expanded to seven different resorts. We picked up Stratton and Bromley Resort, so we're now offering programming in Southern Vermont as well.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: And you forgot to mention that you are an excellent storyteller.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Thank you.

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: That was awesome. It's true.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: One of his wonderful stories last night at Farmers Night, for which we were very grateful.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: That was awesome.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: And you will remember that we all served with Jim Hutchinson.

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: Jim Hutchinson.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: So, you know, we're

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Every every now and then, I visit his tree at Pico. Yes, it's amazing.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: One of the founders of Adaptive.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Correct. Yes. So we've grown 350% over the past ten years. And just to put a framework around the accessibility and the disability community, roughly a quarter of Vermonters identify as having a disability, and roughly a quarter of The United States identify. There's thirteen million folks within a five hour radius of Vermont that identify as having a disability, and they all want to recreate. They all have green money, and they want to spend money. And so what we're doing is we're working to provide them opportunities here in the state of Vermont. And so with that expansion to Strattenden Bromley, we also worked with the Vermont Land Trust to acquire 124 acres in Rochester. We're working on building out an accessible retreat, accessible adventure center as well. So we'll be hosting environmental programs and all kinds of everything from cross country to mountain biking. I did forget to say that out of those 5,700 outings, 1,100 of those outings were veteran outings for our veterans in the state of Vermont. So there's been economic impact analysis throughout the country on any different type of activity, but there hasn't been any for adaptive recreation and adaptive programs. And so we decided through a Vorak grant and working with a CRO planning and design to host one of the first so we can quantify our program, what we're bringing into the state. So we decided to build out an entire plan on how this survey was going to happen. It happened in that year of 2025 with those 5,700 hobbies. We surveyed all of our participants. We surveyed our volunteers. We surveyed folks that attended three separate events, the Vermont one hundred, the Vermont fifty, and the Kelly Brush Ride, or three major events in the state of Vermont to bring folks into the state to support adaptive sports programming. So we wanted to quantify those folks. Who's coming here, where are they coming from, where are they staying, where are they spending their money. And we realized that we had some really great things that came out of that. I'm going to kick it over to Drew here to go through some of the data with you. But the average traveling party for an adaptive participant in the wintertime is 3.1 people. So you think about that there, it's not just an individual coming to play.

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: Yeah, thank you for having both of us here. I'm just gonna touch on some of the organizations I'm involved with. I'm on the board of the Vermont Recreation and Parks Association. You'll hear from our executive director in a few minutes. That's a critical organization that represents all of our municipalities who are offering recreation in Vermont. I think it's really important to note, we're not just mountain bikers out there in the woods, although we both like to do that and many people in this room do, but we're also running summer camps, after school programs. We're running disability programs that we're going to talk about today. These are safe spaces that kids can be when maybe home isn't that safe for them. So it's not just us playing in the woods. It's everybody playing in the woods and creating these spaces. I also just wanna note, I'm a business owner. I founded my business in 2023, started with one employee out of the gate, and I've grown to six. Almost all of those employees are based here in Vermont. One of them is not. But I was able to bring those folks on because of this Vorak funding, and I'm hopeful to grow my business more. And so that's an important piece that it is bringing in business and employees that move here. But I get to talk about some of these big numbers from the Vermont Adaptive study. We found that Vermont Adaptive's programs, events, and volunteering bring in over $10,000,000 every single year into Vermont. That supports 72 jobs overall and almost $2,000,000 in local, state, and

[Nick Mahood (Director, Nordic & Summer Outdoor Operations, Woodstock Inn & Resort)]: federal

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: taxes. That's a huge impact just from Vermont Adaptive programs alone. We do see that their winter programs, almost like our winter activity here in Vermont, are quite a bit bigger than the impact of some of our summer things. So they bring about 3,600,000 into our local economies in the winter, almost $500,000 in the summer. Those events, the Vermont fifty, the Vermont one hundred, the Kelly Brush Ride, these are all adaptive events where folks are using hand cycles, other adaptive equipment. Vermont fifty has equestrian users, hikers, bikers, all sorts of folks. That brings in over $2,500,000 every single year just from those events alone. And then paying people like Jeff, managing those facilities at Sugarbush, at Bolton Valley, all over Vermont, those operations also bring

[Nick Mahood (Director, Nordic & Summer Outdoor Operations, Woodstock Inn & Resort)]: in another $3,500,000 every single year. Speaking of Bolton, I just want

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: to say Lindsay's here. We are building a new yurt on the side of Bolton Valley as well because we've expanded so much at Bolton. We're going give her her base lodge back, so it's going be cool.

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: So this slide is just intended to show where does this money go within the Vermont economy. This is the winter programs, but it's similar for the summer programs. You're gonna see a lot of it in hospitality. These are accommodations, food and beverage, creamies, beer. Those are things that I buy. When I was Jeff, we're usually getting a beer. But if I'm going out with my kids, we're getting a creamy afterwards. We do not go on trails and not buy a creamy. So that's the economic impact we're talking about. Local folks who spend about $10 when we go out. But that $10 makes a difference. That keeps shops open. That keeps our country stores selling sandwiches on a Saturday. So these are really important economic impacts. And this number is kind of unpacking that $2,100,000,000 number that we've heard a lot about. That is our overall economic impact of outdoor recreation. But if we know over twenty five percent of the population identifies as having a disability, that's a quarter of that $2,100,000,000 So that's over $500,000,000 That's beyond people going out with Jeff and their programs. That's people using the trails in Arms Forest here in Burlington where we live. Guy, Ben Curry, he's out there every single day. These are people who are out there using our trails. And I think as we look towards tourism, we have an opportunity to be a destination. As our state parks become more accessible, as we have accessible boat launches, we have accessible restaurants, downtowns, this is why people are gonna choose to come here, because we have everything that those folks want to enjoy. And like Jeff said, they're gonna bring three of their family members. So that's way more than a quarter of the population as well.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: And then the accessibility upgrades just don't really bring that into a disability community. We have an aging population that will benefit from any of these accessible upgrades as well throughout the state, and especially accessible recreation.

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: So these are just the talking points that we'd like to share. That $10,300,000 Vermont Adaptive's impact is really important to us. That's every single year just from their operations. Those 72 jobs, that includes 17 employees from my Adaptive employees, including Jeff and many other amazing people. But it also includes a half a job at that sandwich shop or a quarter of a job for a bartender. So all those jobs add up. In terms of the GDP, their activities bring $6,100,000 into the state's GDP. So that is huge, just from one adaptive recreation organization. We have many here in Vermont. And for every $1 that we spend on Vermont adaptive, we create another dollar of economic impact within Vermont. So that multiplier is huge. A lot times you see it at 1.4, 1.3, Vermont adaptive is at two, a total one to one.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: So I just want to end on this one. So this weekend, we have our seventeenth annual VI Blind Winter Festival. It's held at Pico Mountain. We have 30 athletes coming in from around the country to snowshoe, to ski, and to snowboard. This event has been going on for a long time. This gal, behind me here, his name is Deepa. She was here two years ago. I I saw her name on the list yesterday. She's coming this weekend. She lives in Downtown New York City. We were at the Sherburne Trails behind base camp in Killington, snowshoeing. I was I was the guy that afternoon. We had about eight other athletes with us, but about 16 other volunteers because we needed some extra hands to do the guiding through the woods. We took a pause as we were crunching through the woods, and we stopped on top of a bridge, and there was a frozen creek underneath us. And folks stopped to hear the creek underneath it. And they asked, What was that? That was the creek. And I was about to talk about that we're in a pine forest and an gust of wind came through and we got that pine smell. That took care

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: of And

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: so as we were about to start moving on, a pileated woodpecker came in and started hammering on one of those pines. And Deepa was like, Oh my gosh, what is that? And so we explained to Deepa what a pileated woodpecker looked like and what it was doing. And she's coming back this weekend. Had She an amazing time. It was her first time ever in the woods. So next time you're in the woods, do me a favor. Close your eyes and say to yourself, could I get to this location in the woods with my eyes closed, or could I get back from this location in the woods with my eyes closed? And so recreation is for everybody, no matter what your ability. And and we really appreciate Vorak, what Vorak's doing to move forward together in Vermont. All of the initiatives are really just increasing access to Vermont, everybody deserves to play in the Green Mountains. So we wanna thank you.

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: And we're really leading the way with this. We are at First Open's Economic Impact Study with the Accessibility Hub. Vermont

[Nick Mahood (Director, Nordic & Summer Outdoor Operations, Woodstock Inn & Resort)]: is a leader in accessible recreation, and

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: we want to stay there.

[“Herb Olson” (as transcribed; district listed: Bristol, Lincoln, Monkton, Starksboro)]: So, big shout out to you guys and your whole program. You got a lot of numbers in terms of the economic impact, but I think what you were talking about at the very end there, it's all based on, from my experience, the Sugarbush program and stuff, it's all about pure joy. The pure joy that the folks that you serve, that you work with, and their parents, they're from Vermont or out of state or whatever, that's why they come back, because it's pure joy, and really appreciate what you do. It

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: has nothing to do with money, but that's why we want to have reasons for people

[Nick Mahood (Director, Nordic & Summer Outdoor Operations, Woodstock Inn & Resort)]: to support it, so that's exactly right.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Thank you very much. Thank you.

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: Thank you.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: There we go. One more speaker, so we'll probably move pretty swiftly through these last four posts.

[Lindsay DesLauriers (President/Owner, Bolton Valley Resort; landowner)]: Good morning. Good morning. My

[Alex Rasicot (Co-owner, The Boot Pro Ski & Bike, Ludlow)]: name is Alex Rascoe. My husband Sean Rascoe and I founded the Boot Pro Ski and Bike Shop in La Delbermont in 2008. We employ 28 people, some full time year round and others seasonally. So I thank you very much for the opportunity to share our business outlook for 2026 based on our experience and our family's passion for everything related to the outdoors. I'm just gonna jump off of what you said. Adaptive or people who don't need any adaptive anything in this, it is about pure joy. This is our business. This is how we make our living. But we are so passionate about the outdoors and very involved in so many aspects of it. So first, I'm going to speak about the workforce needs and the challenges in the ski and bike retail industry. And then I'll chime in on some of the challenges to our industry due to climate change.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: So there's good news,

[Alex Rasicot (Co-owner, The Boot Pro Ski & Bike, Ludlow)]: which everybody's been talking about, which is great. So I add to that, that outdoor recreation significantly contributes to the economic vitality of the state, community building, healthy lifestyles and family togetherness. Small, independently owned businesses, often quirky and unique, are essential as attractions that draw visitors and residents alike to spend their leisure time here and also spend their money when they recreate. Our Governor Phil Scott and new legislatures are aware of the importance of these assets. And today's event is a testament to commitment to working together to invest in and nurture our outdoor resources and those Vermonters whose livelihoods depend on them. But there is hard news too. Workforce. It's no secret that as a rural population, employers in our state are competing for workers, and workers who live within a reasonable distance to the job that must be done in person. Of course, then there's housing in resort towns. Naturally, that's where a lot of the jobs related to the outdoor and recreation industry are located. As all of you know, real estate prices in resort towns are usually out of reach for local workers and rents are unnaturally high. So workers must commute to those resort town jobs. From experience, we've interviewed skilled ski and bike shop technicians from as far away as California, people who wanted to move to Vermont to work in a shop because of the quality of life here. They had skills and experience that we were excited about. When we tried helping them find a place to rent, the closest affordable places were about forty five minutes away, which is rough in the winter, especially in the early and late shifts. As a result, none of those people ended up working for us. Skilled technicians in our industry. Now, this is where climate change and the skilled workforce subjects intersect. Climate change has been shortening our winters and often devastating the mid winter weeks when we get long stretches of warm weather and rain. Business owners are forced to cut costs during those bad winters due to a dramatic lack of customers. Aside from the cost of inventory, our biggest expense is our payroll. The year of the twenty twenty three flood, we had just invested in starting a bike shop to help mitigate the risks of exclusively being a ski shop while winters continue to be unpredictable. We hired and trained bike technicians, invested in bike tuning equipment and a fleet of bikes for sale and for rent. When the flood hit, there were virtually no visitors to Ludlow that entire summer. Dump trucks, just dump trucks and our roads. In both scenarios, Sean and I kept our staff on for their regular hours and paid them out of our own savings and a costly line of credit just to keep them from leaving the industry. That's how fragile this industry is. And we know of people in the ski and bike business who, despite their passion for it and advanced skills, have left the industry because they can't depend on a predictable income. So how do you get new people to enter the industry, or young people who are facing an uphill battle to become first home buyers? For one training, and thanks to VOBA and state funding, we've seen the first of its kind bike mechanic and ski technician training in our state. We personally were involved in launching the first VOBA training sessions, which to date have benefited 60 employers and 116 outdoor professionals. We're encouraged that the demand for skilled employees is being filled more readily and cultivating careers in ski and bike service. Even more exciting is the synergy between the technical schools and these training sessions, giving young people a chance to get hands on experience before entering the job market. This is where public funding for workforce training and support for small businesses is essential to our vitality. Paying livable wages and rewarding employees for their professional development and longevity with our company is becoming more and more challenging. When we as business owners who rely on suitable weather for skiing and biking cannot depend on a solid income, it's risky to raise wages. We never know if the increased payroll will be sustainable or if we'll be able to keep all 28 people working at the Boot Pro. Back to the good news, the outdoor recreation community is strong. Nonprofit organizations like Vermont Mountain Bike Association, Catamount Trail Association, VAST, and many others have grown stronger over the last two decades. State funding for trail systems has expanded, helping them modernize to accommodate all levels of participation and be sustainable when floods occur. In short, if I were to sum up some of the ways that the state could help support small businesses and break this cycle of volatility, it would be to help small businesses financially when climate related disaster strikes. Not just to repair physical damage, but to help with financial burdens that come with those disasters. Our shop was only feet from the train track that was hanging and dangling, but we didn't get any mud in our store. But we had no customers for months. So a program like BGAP could be modified to help cover our overheads during a crisis and ensure that we can keep those trained and experienced employees for the long term. And to support in every way possible the organizations who so diligently design, build, and maintain the amazing trail systems in Vermont that attract new Vermonters and visitors. Continue to put state resources into marketing Vermont's outdoor activities and local businesses, many of which are wonderful, rain or shine. And please don't add any more taxes to small businesses. We can't afford them. The fact that we're sitting here and you're listening to the testimonials makes me so optimistic for the future of outdoor recreation despite the challenges. And I thank you very much for your continued support of the outdoor recreational economy. Any questions?

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Thank you, Alex. Okay,

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: Nick. Oh, it's

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Jess.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: Hello,

[Jessica Brody (Executive Director, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: everybody. My name is Jessica Brody. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Recreation and Park Association. We're a nonprofit that works with all the parks and recreation employees in the state, from municipal parks employees to state park employees to commercial businesses to nonprofits. We have over 400 members. So I'm happy to be here to represent, I'm gonna focus on the municipal parks and rec departments, coming from towns large and small. They have just volunteer boards to several staff members and everything in between. And we're honored to be here today to help highlight how impactful outdoor recreation is to our quality of life, our health, our economy, and our sense of place here in Vermont. Municipal parks and art departments are on the front lines in our communities. They're providing safe, inclusive access to not just trails, parks, and natural areas. But I want to remind you about our athletic fields, our swimming areas, our senior centers, our summer camp facilities, and other various recreational programs. From organizing youth sports and senior fitness classes to maintaining trails and beachfront facilities, our staff help Vermonters of all ages stay active, connect with nature, and build our communities. Our municipal park and our departments offer many first time employees the basis for just about every profession that their life might continue on moving forward, such as being a counselor. They learn about education. Going into a medical field. They could learn that from being a lifeguard. Different trade skills, whether they work in seasonal maintenance and in our parks. Coach and trainers, they could go into an athletic career, and everything in between. The programs and events that are offered through our community recreation departments are helping bring together in various ways multiple people, from our elders to new Americans to youth that need additional home support. And after school programming, summer camps, special events help provide the opportunities for community members to build strong connections and come together. Yet despite our vital role, we face persistent challenges that threaten our ability to serve our residents effectively. The biggest challenge we face today is workforce development. Municipal parks and rec departments struggle to recruit and retain qualified staff in an increasingly competitive labor market. Payscales and municipal budgets often lag behind the private sector, making it difficult for our local departments to compete for talented professionals who can design and run safe, effective recreational programs. This just isn't about staffing our our local town recreation leads. It's about ensuring a healthy workforce that supports Vermont's outdoor recreation economy as a whole. If you think about these small departments, they have a lot of unique needs. These people are doing everything from spreading malts planting firework displays over open waterfronts to handling children after school to developing facilities and capital projects. The need for a strong workforce development investment con connects directly to our Move Forward Together Vermont initiative that emphasizes stewardship in parks and trails, wellness through access to nature, and economic development through coordinated investment in an outdoor recreation assets. This vision offers a road map for the future, but we can't implement it without our partners on the ground. We need to move this vision from paper to practice. We need to target investments in training, capacity building, and workforce development pathways that attract Vermonters into the careers of parks and recreation, conservation, and outdoor stewardship. One of the clearest examples so far has been the Borac Community Grant Program. Over the past cycle, more than $6,000,000 in Borac grants have supported over 50 community based projects in outdoor recreation, such as enhanced trails, ADA accessibility, downtown connections, and community resilience after flooding events. These projects has helped strengthen our local economies, expand access for all Vermonters, and demonstrated how strategic funding in our outdoor recreation can produce measurable results. However, many of these funds have been one time appropriations, and the program lacks long term stable funding streams. Without dedicated legislative support, municipal partners struggle to plan beyond the current grant cycle. Securing ongoing funding for Borac and Borac Community grants should be a top priority as it fuels local innovation, builds capacity, and aligns directly with the statewide vision articulated at Move Forward Together Vermont. Resolutions such as Outdoor Recreation Day and Parks and Recreation Month, those are great, at recognition, but we need to move beyond recognition to investment in policy action. There are other proposals in place such as parts of s one twenty two in economic and workforce development bill, including funding for outdoor business technical assistance through the Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation. This aligns with workforce development goals, and we support efforts that build capacity, provide training, and support sector stability. But we urge you to ensure that such bills also consider the unique staffing needs and professional development pathways within specifically municipal parks and recreation departments, not just business assistance. These staff need certain certifications, such as therapeutic recreation, dealing with kids in summer camps, WSI certifications for our waterfronts. In closing, the future of Vermont's outdoor recreation economy depends on a strong municipal parks and recreation workforce in our communities. Long term funding for community grants like Borac, a legislative action that invests in people as much as in places. Our people are really important on the ground. By supporting these priorities, we honor the Move Forward Together Vermont vision and empower local communities to thrive, strengthen our outdoor economy, and enhance the health and well-being of all Vermonters. Thank you guys so much for your time and consideration and your ongoing support of outdoor recreation, community health, and economic vitality in Vermont. It's really important, and I appreciate you guys taking the time to listen to us. And I was told to make sure, I think I'm last, to invite you all to our lunch that is downstairs.

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Are there any question?

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: There

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: are two more speakers.

[Jessica Brody (Executive Director, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: Oh, okay. I think many

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: of us sadly turn into pumpkins, particularly those of us who are Windsor County delegation. We, as you know, have a share of his situation that we're getting update on at 12:15. So I think some of us may have other commitments at 12:00. So I can stay questions for me? If if we can complete it, like, by 12:00 that week.

[Nick Bennett (Executive Director, Vermont Mountain Bike Association; Chair, VT Trails & Greenways Council)]: Hi,

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: I'll be quick.

[Lindsay DesLauriers (President/Owner, Bolton Valley Resort; landowner)]: I know many of you. Maybe you know my beautiful daughter, Juniper. Some of you fought her tennis. No, I'll be really quick. I was asked to talk about regulations, so what's to talk about?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Maybe we're the wrong

[Lindsay DesLauriers (President/Owner, Bolton Valley Resort; landowner)]: I know, and that's what I'm thinking, is you guys aren't covering a lot of it anyway. So but if you do end up taking it up, you're welcome to read. I know you're out of time. I don't wanna take time from other people. You know, but I'll just say, obviously, ski areas deal in a very regulated environment. I also manage and own 2,000 acres of land separate from the ski area, so kind of come at it from both sides. I really just appreciate legislature has been trying, I think, to not just like, I feel I feel like a lot times people are like, oh, it's not the regulations. It's the process. And it is for sure. The process can use reform. But also, to be honest, some of the regulations could be looked at too. They're preventing opportunities that I think we want to promote. So I think there's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Lizzie, where are those

[Drew Pollak-Bruce (CRO Planning & Design; Board Member, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: for those of us who look

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: at in bill form? I because as you know, with housing, we're working on a lot of this. Yep. We're looking at barriers to doing Totally. So is that in a bill in front of anybody's committee that we should be advocating for?

[Lindsay DesLauriers (President/Owner, Bolton Valley Resort; landowner)]: I think you guys are with the 181. Again, looking at that with housing, I think you are making improvements, but you're focusing really just exclusively on urban centers. So, like, for example, like the 1B, the tier 1B in the mapping, I think it was meant to address people who have areas that have infrastructure, like water wastewater, and address And where the town has identified, Yes, this is where we want growth. It's in the town plan. But there are some other pieces in there that actually exclude a lot of communities. A lot of ski communities are among them, but I'm sure there's lots of other ones who are excluded from that 1B criteria. And when I would talk to people at the agency or whatever, they're like, Oh, you should be included because you have these pieces. But we're not because you have to have like the village designation. There's these other like little things that end up excluding communities that have those core fundamental pieces of water wastewater and where the it's in the town plan. And I just think, like, whoops, you know, an op great opportunity to clean up. I mean, do I have issues with the tier three? Sure do. A lot of people do, you know? And I know we don't really have time to dig in, but I can just say, like, ski areas are in Act two fifty. There's no coming out. So it's not like, oh, we're trying to get ski areas out of Act two fifty through this. We wouldn't. We can't. But I've built bike trails through Bolton Valley under Act two fifty, and I can tell you it's extraordinarily challenging. Even in an area that's already being used for recreation, where you would think, great, we're gonna consolidate uses here. It's already disturbed, it's already used. This should be the perfect place to consolidate. I actually own one of the properties that built the property that built the Richmond Mountain Trails, built the driving range, the first fully accessible adaptive trail network in Vermont. Was like this totally amazing project. And currently, could say to them, go for it, build on this land. And they were able to do this beautiful project. If they're subject to Act two fifty, I'll just tell you, it's not just that you have to go through a regulatory process. It's not just you're like then creating regulation. If if what you're effectively doing is just creating an absolute prohibition because it's the the time and the cost like can Bolton Valley do it? Barely. Barely. A community cannot do it. A private landowner cannot do that kind of stuff. So those are just a couple of things. I know So

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: I urge you, and on our behalf, we will speak with Ann Watson, but we need to have you in front of Senate Natural Resources, which is taking this all a lot of these pieces up. So really, let's get you in

[Jessica Brody (Executive Director, Vermont Recreation & Parks Association)]: a And I'm always

[Lindsay DesLauriers (President/Owner, Bolton Valley Resort; landowner)]: happy to share my experience. There's other stuff too. Like, the on the record stuff's pretty serious. Raising the bar for what constitutes a party status really should be looked at, stuff like that.

[Jackie Dagger (Program Manager, VOREC)]: Yes. And you know what I'm talking.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: Well, and vice versa, but it's an active act now, so I would let's be in touch. Also, would just say, reach out to the rural caucus too. We're working a lot on this.

[Kelly Alt (Executive Director, Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance)]: Okay. Our last speaker was Mick Mahogue from Woodstock, but I know we're out of time, so I don't know.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: I can pass.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: This is

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Jennifer Alison.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs)]: We're in deep communication. We can be in touch. Unless you want to just quickly just got

[Nick Mahood (Director, Nordic & Summer Outdoor Operations, Woodstock Inn & Resort)]: two minutes. How much? I can try two minutes. Thank you. Awesome. My name is Nick Mahood. I am the director of the summer outdoor outdoor activity center and the Nordic Center in Woodstock, Vermont at the Woodstock Inner Resort. I'm also a board member of our local Vimba chapter, Wamba, as well as serving a two year board term on ski Vermont representing all of the cross country ski areas in the state of Vermont. We have a growing outdoor rec community in Woodstock. It's definitely blossomed over my time in Woodstock and my time at the resort, which is super exciting. But we do definitely face some challenges. Two of the challenges I just will quickly go over that we are facing here. I was going to talk about Act two fifty, but everything Lindsay said pretty much covers what I've experienced. So skiing, I guess what say to everybody, my job is basically water management. I'm either dealing with snow or no snow or in the summer water or too much water. So we have with snow, no snow and cross country skiing, it's really hard to run a business. It's hard to plan for your business, hard to budget for your business. So I'm really thankful to have the support of the resort. We were able to run a pilot snowmaking project last year and then fully go on board with snowmaking this season, becoming the seventh Nordic Center 100 out of about 2,023 in Vermont to have snowmaking. It is unfortunately, I think the way of the future for cross country skiing in the state, But it allows us to plan, it allows us to staff, it allows us to stay open, which if you're a business and you're open, you're making money. If you're a business and you're closed, you're not. So it's really critically important. There's a lot of efficiencies we can build on snowmaking moving forward, but I do think, unfortunately, it is the way of the future. There are challenges. It's expensive. Tariffs, not only did I get a bill for the snowmaking equipment, I got a bill for the tariffs. So that is definitely a challenge with that. Water is obviously a challenge. We're really fortunate. We do have a pretty robust supply of water seemingly at the moment for snowmaking, but we will see moving forward. The other parts of my other water part of my job, oversee our we are an Orbis endorsed fly fishing lodge at the Woodstock Inner Resort. So I oversee our fly fishing guide team and operations. We run close to 400 trips a year. We have struggled and it gets worse, seemingly worse, every summer with water, either too much water like 2023 or not anywhere near enough water like last season. A lot of that there's obviously we don't have a fix like you do in the winter with snowmaking, but a lot of that is flexibility with your guide team, being able to pivot where you're guiding. We're really fortunate the White River is in our watershed that we guide. The White is the longest undammed river in New England, and it was the only river when we've had years of drought that we have been able to still fish in. Most of our guides are very, very active in conservation, and dam removal is a topic that comes up all the time. I do really believe that we were able to stay fishing in the White because there is undammed all the way out to the Connecticut from its inception. And so, know, a lot of our guide team is very active in working on dam removal. That's one thing I think that we can't really deal with the no rain or too much rain, but I think we can deal with its impact on fisheries in one way, shape or form. Anyway, that's a really quick version of my presentation. Thank you very much for your time. Water

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: with golf too.

[Nick Mahood (Director, Nordic & Summer Outdoor Operations, Woodstock Inn & Resort)]: With golf. Quick questions? To. Great. Good. How was that? Did I do two minutes? Yeah.

[Jeff Alexander (Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports)]: Yeah. Okay. Alright. Did well. Thank you. Thank you for your time.

[Rep. Mike Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce & Economic Development)]: Okay. So that concludes the hearing. House of Commerce lunch back in committee at 01:00. And I think we can go off live.