Big, good community radio news.
Friday, May 9, 2025
Friends of WGDR/WGDH -
You did it! The Vermont Legislature just approved $150,000 in one-time funding for the ten community radio stations in Vermont. This is a direct result of your advocacy on behalf of the difference WGDR & WGDH makes in your everyday lives. Especially given federal funding trends and the impact on state funding, this is a really, really big deal. Thank you!
This funding will help each station upfit with new, critical broadcast gear like new transmitters or antennas, to ensure we stay on the air, especially during emergent situations in our communities. For many of these stations, they operate on budgets of less than $25K, with no staff. This is a game changer for them. For WGDR & WGDH, this means we can move ahead with our plan to move the WGDR antenna to a better tower location in Plainfield, to dramatically improve our broadcast reach and quality. This too, will be a game changer for us.
At a time when it feels like good news is hard to come by, we hope you will take a minute and revel in this with us. Go team community radio!
And, if you could, please help us thank the legislators who made this possible. We made lots of new friends during this process, and some of our long-time champions were the difference maker in the final moments.
Please thank them in any of the following ways:
Send a hand written note to any of the folks listed below, before the end of the session, to their statehouse address: 115 State Street, Drawer 33, Montpelier, VT 05602.
Leave a message of thanks for them at the State House, call the Sergeant-at-Arms’ office: 1-800-322-5616 or 828-2228.
Or email them, at the addresses listed below.
Folks to email from the Joint Conference Committee (the folks who ultimately approved the funding!)
Rep. Robin Scheu - RScheu@leg.state.vt.us (Addison) (Co-Chair)
Rep. Jim Harrison - jharrison@leg.state.vt.us (Rutland)
Rep. TIff Bluemle - tbluemle@leg.state.vt.us (Chittenden 13)
Sen. Ginny Lyons - vlyons@leg.state.vt.us (Chittenden District)
Sen. Richard Westman - rawestman@gmail.com (Lamoille District) - WGDH's Senator!
Sen. Andrew Perchlik - aperchlik@leg.state.vt.us (Washington District) (Co-Chair) He was our biggest champion for this funding, and is a WGDR Senator, send him big WGDR/WGDH thanks!
Other community radio legislative support came from:
Rep. Bob Hooper (Chittenden-18) - rhooper@leg.state.vt.us - Introduced the original bill.
Rep. Rep. Lisa Hango - LHango@leg.state.vt.us (Franklin-5), Vice Chair of House Government Operations & Military Affairs - Made sure the bill passed out of their committee first!
Rep. Matt Birong - mbirong@leg.state.vt.us (Addison-3) Chair of House Government Operations & Military Affairs - Made sure the bill passed out of their committee first!
Rep. Teddy Waszazak - ewaszazak@leg.state.vt.us - (Washington-3), included our stand alone bill into the larger H.397 bill about emergency flood response, a key step.
Rep. Tom Stevens - tstevens@leg.state.vt.us - (Washington-Chittenden), ensured House Appropriations Committee understood the importance of the funding on rural communities.
Rep. David Yacovone - DYacovone@leg.state.vt.us- (Lamoille-Washington), also ensured House Appropriations Committee understood the importance of the funding on rural communities.
Senator Brian Collamore - bcollamore@leg.state.vt.us (Rutland District), Chair of the Senate Government Operations, allowed us to reintroduce the funding and bill when it didn't pass the House.
We also had many of WGDR & WGDH's area state representatives and senators express their support of community radio and this funding by voting yes on this budget (out of the House & Senate). So, thank your local folks too!
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It feels great to be able to share good news, especially on a Friday night.
Thank you listeners!
Llu Mulvaney-Stanak
Station Manager WGDR/WGDH
p.s. Don't miss other exciting things happening at the station. Coming up in the next few weeks: more new locally produced shows starting in June and our big birthday weekend, June 6-8. More info via the links and coming soon to your inboxes.
