Marc Gwinn for Montpelier

Town Meeting Day is March 4th!

Goals & Priorities

In my work as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional I help individuals, families, and businesses achieve financial success. Each situation is unique, but the process is consistent, and it works.

  • Setting clear goals & priorities is critical. Each goal has its place in our timeline and a price tag. From there, we make every decision around these clearly defined and prioritized goals.

  • Disciplined follow-through is crucial as well. A plan is only as good as our commitment to execute.

  • Finally, constant refinement and continuous improvement are essential to ensuring that we adapt as our vision comes into focus.

I intend to bring this simple yet effective approach to City Council. These are the priorities that I envision:

Infrastructure

Decisions about our roads and water/sewer systems must be made with vision and leadership towards our desired future state. Housing and economic development are dependent on this cornerstone of our city.

Emergent problems will always be an issue in an aging system, but we must do more than repair broken water mains and patch holes. We have to imagine things as they should be and work systematically towards it. If it requires alternative sources of funding then we need to seek out the grant and loan programs that allow us to make necessary investments today to deliver our desired future.

“The road to success is always under construction”
- Lily Tomlin

Resilience & Preparedness

If the next disaster were to happen tomorrow, we would not be ready. It will take time to become a truly resilient community that is prepared to respond and recover.

But let’s not focus on how unprepared we feel in this moment. Let’s do the work that is required to be prepared.

We must engage in watershed-level partnerships and projects that will minimize the amount of flood water that arrives in our downtown. We must rebuild in ways that make our downtown structures less vulnerable to the water that does arrive. And we must engage our neighbors as a community to improve communication & mutual aid.

All of these add up to a culture of preparedness that is core to the future prosperity of Montpelier.

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."
- Benjamin Franklin 

Housing

Addressing the housing crisis is essential to increase our tax base, bring much needed vitality to our city, and address homelessness.

The City is not a housing developer, nor should we be, but we can create conditions that attract and encourage development in the ways specific for the growth we need while maintaining the character that we love.

We need to focus our efforts on our downtown area. A strong and vital downtown is essential to organic growth and subsequent economic development.

“The ache for home exists in all of us.”
- Maya Angelou

Culture Shift

Montpelier is a beautiful. community-minded town full of intelligent, positive people. Discussions in Council Chambers, in City Hall, and in community forums, however, often focus on problems and what can’t be done or what shouldn’t be done.

We need to shift our outlook to one of what can be done and what must be done. We will achieve more and better results by pursuing a positive than we will by avoiding a negative.

I know we can have conversations in this way because I have have them all of the time.

If we expect our community to be positive about change and to engage the future with optimism then each of us must lead by example.

Don’t talk about it; be about it.

“Don’t boo. Vote.”
- Barack Obama

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Center for Financial Planning, Inc. owns and licenses the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®, and CFP® (with plaque design) in the United States to Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc., which authorizes individuals who successfully complete the organization’s initial and ongoing certification requirements to use the certification marks.