Pomfret Selectboard chair Benjamin Brickner seeks Democratic nod for Windsor Senate seat

By Tom Ayres

Senior Staff Writer

Benjamin Brickner, the chair of the Pomfret Selectboard, on Monday officially announced his candidacy for the Windsor District seat in the Vermont State Senate that will be vacated at the end of this legislative term due to the retirement of veteran lawmaker Alison Clarkson of Woodstock.

Brickner is the third candidate to enter the race for the Windsor Senate seat in the Aug. 11 Democratic primary. Current State Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (D-Windsor 1) and former state representative and Chester Selectboard member Heather Chase announced their candidacies for Clarkson’s Vermont Senate seat last month.

Brickner’s campaign kickoff took place at Pomfret Town Hall on Monday afternoon. Following introductions from former State Rep. Heather Surprenant and past Pomfret Selectboard member and auditor Chuck Gunderson, the previous, longtime owner of the Teago General Store, Brickner took the podium to enthusiastic applause from a crowd of more than 40 supporters.

In his inaugural campaign handout and in remarks before the crowd at Monday’s kickoff event, Brickner stressed five central tenets of his campaign for the Vermont Senate: keeping Vermont affordable; investing in schools to strengthen our communities; providing high-quality emergency services that reach all residents, particularly in rural towns; protecting Vermont’s working landscape; and building a state where the next generation can stay and thrive.

“I’ve come to realize that the biggest challenges that we face — affordability, schools, emergency services, land use, housing — aren’t separate problems. They’re symptoms of the same thing: a slow unraveling of what makes Vermont Vermont,” Brickner told his listeners. “When families can’t afford to stay here, our schools shrink. When schools shrink, fewer families move here. When there are fewer families, emergency services go understaffed, and when farms can’t pass to the next generation, the landscape that defines this place begins to disappear. And when a community hollows out, people lose faith that the government is working for them at all.

“Anyone who has sat around a selectboard table knows this, but the way Montpelier works does tend to approach each problem as being separate,” Brickner continued. “Education transformation that doesn’t address the rising costs, housing reforms that overlook land use rules that slow construction, emergency services initiatives that ignore the volunteer crisis because many families just can’t afford to live here. Our communities need someone who sees how these pieces connect. That’s what I’ve been doing here in Pomfret for seven years, and that’s why I’m running for State Senate,” he added.

Brickner, a New Jersey native, and his wife, Katie, settled in Pomfret in 2018. “We were simply looking for a place to start our family and to belong to a real community — and we found it here,” he told listeners. At his first Town Meeting in 2019, Brickner was elected to a three-year term as a Pomfret auditor. Three years later, in 2022, Pomfret voters chose him to serve on the town selectboard, which he currently chairs.

“I’d like to tell you a little bit about what that work has looked like so far,” Brickner said of his service on the town governing body. “When a landslide cut Pomfret in half last year, we got on the phone with the state and made our case. We secured over half a million dollars in emergency aid so that the local taxpayers here didn’t bear the full cost of rebuilding infrastructure that serves the region,” Brickner said. “When our neighbors in northeast Pomfret faced long 911 response times, we didn’t just accept it — we sat down with our neighbors in Hartford, analyzed the call data, and built a service agreement that cut those times nearly in half, even saving tax dollars overnight. And we did it while keeping our volunteer fire department and our FAST squad right here where they belong.

“When the Mountain Views school bond was proposed, I sat in living rooms across the district, answered difficult questions on the listserv, and made the case one voter at a time. Ultimately, our seven towns came together and approved the bond, not, I believe, because everyone agreed on every detail, but because voters trusted the process was honest and understood that the investment in our children was necessary,” Brickner continued. “[And] when a landowner in Tunbridge sought to restrict public access to recreational trails, Pomfret stepped up to help. We filed a brief in the [Vermont] Supreme Court arguing that towns can maintain these trails for the public good. The Supreme Court unanimously agreed — and now more than 500 miles of trails are protected across Vermont,” he added. “And when Senator Clarkson and I saw a gap in how Vermont protects those who serve as our firefighters, local officials, and nonprofit volunteers, we drafted the Volunteer Protection Act to close that gap. That bill is pending before the legislature today because volunteers should not fear being sued simply because they serve their community.”

Brickner amplified his remarks at the campaign event on Monday by saying, “I won’t stand here and say that I have all of the answers, because I don’t, but I will tell you the few things that I believe and that will guide me,” adding, “I believe that a government earns the right to tax only when it proves it can spend wisely. In Pomfret, we kept taxes low below the state average, not by cutting services, but by questioning every expense and treating every dollar as our neighbors’ money, because it is. I believe that education begins before kindergarten, and that students learning skilled trades deserve the same quality of education as students preparing for other fields. Families can’t get ahead if they can’t find childcare. Let them work. Childcare is a public good, not a private problem that families should solve on their own.

“I believe Vermonters are good stewards of their land. Our land use laws should reflect that — a farmer shouldn’t need five lawyers to understand Act 250. The new Tier 3 maps go beyond the problems they’re meant to solve, imposing new restrictions on farms and rural communities where land use is already heavily regulated,” Brickner noted. “I believe the next generation should be able to make a life here. When a neighbor tells me their grown children want to come home but cannot afford to, that is not a housing statistic. It’s a community’s future slipping away.

“And I believe, as a first principle, that everyone in our community deserves to be treated with dignity and with respect,” Brickner said in conclusion. “That’s why the Pomfret Selectboard joined hundreds of communities to adopt a declaration of inclusion in 2023 and a strong affirmation of due process and equal protection just last year. Municipal services come first, but standing up for our neighbors is also part of the job.”

Pomfret Selectboard chair Benjamin Brickner announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the Vermont State Senate from the Windsor District at a campaign kickoff event at Pomfret Town Hall on Monday.

Tom Ayres Photo