Roberts, Lyddy talk guns, housing

From the Deerfield Valley News, Oct. 6, 2022

On Thursday, September 22, the Rotary Club of the Deerfield Valley held a forum for candidates running for the Windham-6 district representative, which includes Wilmington, Whitingham, and Halifax. Democratic candidate Tristan Roberts and Republican candidate John Lyddy debated for an hour, touching on subjects such as gun control, housing, and abortion.

Asked about the Second Amendment, Lyddy said he owned guns and believed in protecting his house and family. He also said he believed hunters should be able to responsibly hunt in the woods and national forests. “I’m tired of the constant drumbeat of individuals that are trying to, in the end, terminate Second Amendment rights for all,” he said.

Lyddy blamed “felons with guns” for gun violence in cities and proposed disarming them. “If you take the guns away from the people that shouldn’t have them,” he said, “we wouldn’t have to worry about the people who do.”

Roberts said he did not know anyone who wanted to take away guns from law-abiding citizens. “Any law-abiding citizen that wants to have a gun should be able to have a gun so long as they can demonstrate that they can use it and store it safely,” he said.

Roberts said people needed to come together to talk about responsibility. “Gun owners have a right to safety of their guns,” he said. “I believe that. I believe everyone has the right to the safety of our kids in schools. For parents sending their kids to schools, who do not feel safe right now in America with what’s going on, we may need to look at reasonable measures in the Vermont Legislature.”

Roberts said he’d remain open-minded on these measures. He noted that different voters he talked to, for example, had different definitions of “semi-automatic” and “assault rifle.”

Asked how the candidates would attract people to the state. Roberts noted the vacancies at Twin Valley Elementary School, saying that “in a normal world,” these would be for “good-paying, steady jobs” that people would move to Vermont for. He blamed the housing situation for why that was not happening. “We don’t have enough housing and it costs too much,” he said, adding that the crisis needed to be looked at from all angles.

Roberts said one angle he was looking at was providing funding to renovate homes into long-term rentals. He also said he’d like to look at why owners and developers were choosing to stock short-term rentals instead of long-term ones.
Lyddy said Vermont needed to make it easier for “the 20-to-45 age group” to live in the state. He proposed tax rebate programs to encourage more apartments being built, as well as tax reductions for 20- to 45-year-olds, particularly in property. He also noted child care as an area that needs focus.

Lyddy said businesses were too tied up in regulations. “We have too many strings and too many oversight agencies on those businesses,” he said. “We have to look at ways to truncate that so they’re not constantly looking at every state official coming in, coming through, saying ‘You’re not doing this right.’”

The final question was if there was any part of a man’s body the government should control, which elicited laughter and cheers from the audience. Roberts said he signed up for selective service when he was 18. “We’re all ready to serve when called upon and that is the duty of living in a free country,” he said.

Lyddy said that he opposed restrictions and regulations for men and women. He believed “we need to get back to doctor-patient relationships exclusively.” He said that there was no law in any state that prohibits a man or woman from getting a procedure under a doctor-patient relationship. 

“Let’s take the third trimester,” he said. “The doctor that thinks that the life of the mother, the life of the child is in danger, they are able to do this. Yes, that’s true. Not one regulation anywhere in any state that restricts a doctor from working with a mother in the doctor-patient relationship.”

In their closing remarks, Roberts recounted a story in which he drank from a spring behind his house. He compared his relationship with the spring to Vermonter’s relationships with each other. “You go to your neighbors with a need at a dire time like Irene, at a time right now when the national mood is very stressed,” he said. “You go to the neighbors with a need, with a discussion and come back nourished and that’s the Vermont that I see and that’s the Vermont I would want to represent.”

Lyddy closed by saying he wants people to work hard and come to a consensus on how to solve their problems. Noting he had 50 years of experience in business, fundraising, and political settings, he said Vermont was important to him but that the community was more important. “I’d rather see that the state is capable of sustaining its children, and keep them in the state,” he said.