Determining The Right Length Of The Governor’s Term

When Vermont became a U.S. State in 1791, Thomas Chittenden was voted to a one-year term as governor. The gubernatorial term of office was expanded to two years in 1870. Since then, a number of efforts have been undertaken to change the term of office to four years but it has never been approved.

Constitutional changes can be proposed every four years and there is some support in Montpelier to double the length of the governor's term of office. Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott supports these efforts while UVM Professor Frank Bryan prefers the status quo.

Also on the program, we travel to Rochester to speak with Anni Mackay and John Penwarden. After Tropical Storm Irene, photographer John Penwarden made his way from his home in Benson to the devastated town of Rochester with garbage bags, water, work gloves and his camera. Once there, he met up with Mackay and other Rochester residents who showed him around and helped him document the cleanup and community in Rochester in the days immediately after the storm. Penwarden's photos, published in Vermont Magazine and Vermont Life and elsewhere, have touched people around the country. Host Jane Lindholm spoke with Penwarden and Mackay, who owns an art gallery in Rochester, about the power of documentary photography to capture a disaster and its aftermath.

  

Photos: John Penwarden

And in honor of National Mentoring Month, we go to King Street Youth Center in Burlington to meet Sarah and Makayla, a mentoring pair who have been together for two and a half years.