Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, for The Winooski News
WINOOSKI — Former Lt. Gov. Molly Gray visited Winooski last month on her campaign trail, trying to resume her former position come election time on Nov. 3.
During her visit, Gray popped into local businesses like Specs café-bar, sat down with Winooski School Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria and met with representatives from the Winooski Fire Department. The visit, she said, was focused on listening to community leaders about the city’s challenges and priorities.
“The Winooski community is a tremendous model right now for local resilience and resistance,” Gray said. “Winooski is an example of what’s possible.”
Gray hosted a roundtable talk with business owners at Standing Stone Wines to discuss their concerns about the upcoming Burlington-Winooski Bridge construction project and its effects on Main Street’s parking and foot traffic.
“She was just really wanting to hear from Winooski businesses, from any perspective,” said Troy Levey, co-owner and general manager of Mule Bar. “I think some people were expecting an immediate response, but it was just a conversation.”
Gray said that despite the worry, she found it encouraging that parking was the primary issue on people’s minds.
“If parking is the biggest issue, to me that’s a sign that so many other aspects of the Winooski economy are working well,” she said in an interview with Community News Service.
Gray later stopped into Mule Bar’s newly expanded space downtown. She said it was one of the moments from the visit that stuck with her — a small business supporting its neighbors and the city’s local economy.
“They were genuinely interested in what was going on, and that felt good on a personal level; it makes us feel good,” Levey said.
Gray said businesses, like Mule Bar, and the new Sugar House Hotel slated to open this summer, are signs of the city’s economic momentum.
At Vermont Curry and Cocktails, Gray met with Superintendent Chavarria to discuss immigration enforcement and how federal policies have affected students and families in the Winooski School District, which is one of the most diverse in the state.
“Her views align very much with the many priorities that we have in Winooski,” Chavarria said, noting he was speaking personally and not on behalf of the district. “I have confidence that if she is elected, she will have Winooski’s interests in mind, and I think our immigrant communities will probably be safer and better taken care of.”
Gray previously served as Vermont’s lieutenant governor and has spent the past several years as executive director of the Vermont Afghan Alliance. The organization connects Afghan refugees with jobs, housing, driver’s licenses and legal services. She has also worked as a human rights lawyer and was Vermont’s assistant attorney general from 2018 to 2021.
Earlier in her career, she worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross during a period when the organization was monitoring detainee conditions at Guantanamo Bay. She said that work, which began after her younger brother deployed to Iraq following the Sept. 11 attacks, grounded her focus on human rights.
She said that focus shapes how she thinks about Vermont’s immigration debate today.
“I’ve seen the cruelty and inhumanity of the Trump administration up close, from unlawful immigration policies and ICE detention to the wrongful ending of basic food assistance for our newest neighbors,” she said. “Working with our Afghan allies has reminded me, even on our darkest days, that there is hope and possibility.”
Gray said that Vermont, one of the oldest states in the country with a declining workforce, cannot afford to turn away immigrants and newcomers. She said addressing housing affordability and healthcare costs are central to making the state more suitable for working families.
“Vermont is not going to birth its way out of its workforce crisis,” she said. “We have to welcome people from across the world with their skills and their talents.”
Gray pointed to the resilience she sees in places like Winooski’s downtown, the willingness of business owners and community members to keep investing even when times are hard.
“People don’t choose to be in Vermont because it’s easy,” she said. “We choose to be in Vermont because of a love of place and a belief in what’s possible.”