Publisher’s Note: We conducted this interview with Jake Sallerson in Vermont’s Mad River Valley.

Q. You are a 27-year-old Vermont native who grew up here in the Mad River Valley.Why do you want to run for a HOUSE seat in Montpelier’s legislature?

A. In 2004, when I was fourteen years old, my family was chosen and awarded a Habitat for Humanity house. Habitat requires the family to put in 500 “Sweat Equity Hours” as part of the agreement, I cannot remember the exact figure but I know we put in well above 500 hours. In a sense you could say this taught me the value of hard work, but the important part for me wasn’t building the house, (even though it was enormous fun and I learned a ton about house building). The part for me that was so rewarding was recognizing all the volunteer work of those who participated not only their time, money and effort, but the hope of offering my family a house we could call home.

In the last several years, I have been trying to find ways to give back. In 2012, I went out to Montana, and joined the Montana Conservation Corps through Ameri-Corps, and spent six months working on a Trail crew in the backwoods of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and South Dakota. Again, the value of hard work was instilled, but the feeling of reward came in knowing I was doing something greater for a community rather than for just myself. I have been looking to find a way to give back to my home community, and initially I started my own 501c3 nonprofit with the intention of wanting to bridge the gap between people and government. At the time feeling there were no avenues currently in place allowing or even encouraging communication or discussion between the two. What I found was most people weren’t interested in communicating with their government because they felt as though their voice didn’t matter and it wasn’t valued by their leaders.

To answer your question, I want to run because I want to re-instill the trust between voters and leaders. I feel as though we have lost faith entirely in our political process and as an American, and a Vermonter, it is disheartening to me because we were founded upon the principles of self-governance and to many extents we have lost sight of what that means.

Q. What issues do you see as crucial to Mad River Valley’s future, as well as Vermont’s future?

A. The big issues as I see them are:

-The local economy: I feel as though the Valley is suffering immensely on the economic scale, and the ability to both live here and operate a business here is becoming nearly impossible. I feel we have incredibly bright individuals in our town who are sure to have amazing revolutionary concepts in how to address this problem and I want very much to listen to anyone who has a potential solution.

-Spending: for me, economics 101 is the simple philosophy that has guided my adult life.. (In a nutshell) “Do not spend more than you have”, but more importantly, spend wisely that which you do have. I think we have a spending problem here in Vermont, and I think we need to re-examine how we appropriate our funds and as a community, find new ways to spend intelligently.

-Healthcare: The big one. Healthcare in all reality should be a universal right for all American citizens. As a young Vermonter having grown up here recently, I am at a complete loss in understanding why Universal health care does not exist for everyone. Again, I think as a community and as a State we need to collectively sit down and Together find the means of solving this issue. There are answers to this problem. The issue isn’t that we cannot find those answers, the issue is, do we care enough to try to? My job as a Representative isn’t to find the answers myself. My job is to facilitate conversation and discover the ideas of my voters and then combine every good idea into one greater idea.

Q. What makes your candidacy unique or special?

A. The one distinction I always explain to folks when I speak with them is that when the country was founded, the majority of people lived and died within a 30 mile radius of where they lived. For those of us born in the Valley, this would mean traveling no further than Montpelier, and no further than the outskirts of Rutland County. Can you imagine?

In those times, the job of a representative was to travel from town to town, community to community, to voice the concerns of that particular town. The Representatives’ job was not to push an agenda of their own, nor was it to speak what they felt was to be important.. They were simply a vessel. We have lost sight of this intention in the modern day, and I aim to re-incorporate it. We need constant public input on all issues all the time. Otherwise we simply have an elected group of oligarchic individuals making decisions for the rest of us without our knowledge or consent.

My platform centers entirely around this concept as it was designed. My one goal is to facilitate conversation, discussion and dialogue amongst my community so as to gain a greater understanding of what they want to see from their government, Essentially, placing the power of decision making back into the hands of the people. The idea isn’t for me to just occasionally communicate with the voting populous, but to create an ongoing, never-ending conversation with the community so as to always know where our mindset is at so as a representative I don’t have to question what my people want, I will simply know.

The other aspect of my platform is exploring a potential partnership with the organization “New GrassRoots.” NewGrassRoots is a digital platform in which individuals can actively participate in the political process at a level unprecedented in the current digital realm. Folks can log in to the website, find a bill currently being discussed in the legislature and directly contact their representative. The system is set up in a way that you can record a one minute voice message that will then be emailed directly to their state rep. The site also has the feature of letting the sender know the instant that message is opened, so as to inform the sender whether or not their message has been heard. I am very excited about this platform and look forward to implement this system into my future role as a state rep.

Q. What does it mean, for you, to run as an “independent”?

A. To run as an independent is extraordinarily important. Today, political parties dictate how their members vote in legislature. They are ordered without hesitation do do exactly as the party commands. This is called corruption. It is dangerous, but more importantly, it undermines the voter. It basically says to those who voted that their voice is irrelevant and it doesn’t matter what they want from their representative because if it doesn’t align with the party, there’s no way on earth it will ever come to fruition.

For me, my entire platform is centered around the individual. Every Voice Matters! Democracy is about hearing all sides and then finding consensus. The two party system is about making sure the other side doesn’t get their way. Inherently we know this is wrong and nobody thus far has stepped up and offered an alternative, thus forcing us to align ourselves with evil corporations who does not have our best interest at heart or in mind. I believe in community and I believe the constitution was written, “We the people…” not “We the Elected.”

Q. How can citizens get involved in your campaign?

A. I would love local support! Anything anyone is willing to do would be incredibly helpful. However, I think the biggest support an individual could offer is to get word of mouth going. Tell everyone you can about my platform. Explain to them that this young local guy has a platform that makes a ton of sense in terms of putting faith, trust and value back into the political process. Explain that you support it and that you feel they should too!

Valley citizens can reach me at my personal email at jsallerson@gmail.com, or visit my Facebook page at facebook.com/VermontRevolutionary. I have a great deal of ideas for offering the community ways in which they can support my campaign, and I would love the opportunity to speak with individuals about what works best for them in terms of finding out how they can best support our campaign.