James Marc Leas, a patent lawyer in South Burlington, has been publishing articles on CancelF35.substack.com since October 2020.
Amanda Janoo, the Democratic candidate for Vermont Governor, did not mince words. In response to a pre-publication draft of an article later posted on CancelF35.substack.com, through a campaign staffer, she sent this blunt and unequivocal message:
The F-35s are loud as hell, they disrupt our communities, and are currently being used in military operations around the world that I fundamentally oppose. The people who live underneath these nuclear-capable planes voted against having them here, and they came anyway. So yes, if there’s anything I can legally do as Governor to get them out of our skies, I’m down.
Governor Phil Scott then used his Facebook page to attack Amanda Janoo for this statement. But his Facebook post ducks the real issues she raised. Why, under his command, are our airmen training with 115-decibel F-35 jets by taking off and landing within Vermont cities, in violation of human decency and town meeting democracy. And also in violation of the military’s own discipline?
Instead, Phil Scott diverts to a different issue, “keeping the Air National Guard in Vermont.” He says that this is what “nearly every major office holder in Vermont agrees on.” But that is not the issue. As we will see below, there is no danger of Vermont losing its Air National Guard if the F-35 jets depart from Vermont or just departs from its populated areas.
Town Meeting and City Council votes
Residents and city councils of the three cities most affected voted against the basing and the ongoing F-35 training flights. Burlington voted with 55% of the voters to cancel the basing at town meeting in 2018; 67% of the voters in Winooski voted to halt the training at town meeting in 2021. South Burlington’s City Council voted to cancel the plan to base the F-35 in 2018 and to call for replacing the F-35 with another mission in 2024. The F-35 was foisted on these cities against their will.
Becca Balint called for a change in the mission
Phill Scott omitted that our newest major office holder, Congresswoman Becca Balint, called on the Department of Defense “to change the mission, to use a different plane,” as WCAX reported two years ago.
Enforce military discipline
And he omitted that it is his responsibility, as commander in chief, to enforce military discipline. “Distinction,” one of its fundamental principles, requires separation of military operations from populated areas to protect civilians. The Air Force itself wrote that 6,663 Vermonters (BR4-30) and their 1,200 children (BR4-81) face permanent hearing damage (C-22, C-25) and impaired cognitive development (C-28 to C-30) from the F-35 training in this city location. The Air Force cited studies showing “that chronic exposure to high aircraft noise levels can impair learning,” including “lower reading scores.” It also reported that “Researchers have found that tasks involving central processing and language comprehension (such as reading, attention, problem solving, and memory) appear to be the most affected by noise.”
Noise monitors installed by the Burlington International Airport confirmed the 115-decibel noise level for the F-35, as anticipated by the US Air Force. And the suffering the Air Force also anticipated was confirmed by surveys and news reports after most of the full complement of 20 F-35s arrived at the airport in Spring 2020.
Vermonters and their children suffer because Governor Phil Scott failed to enforce the separation of F-35 military training operations from populated areas that is required by “distinction.”
Vermont will not lose its Air National Guard
Phil Scot’s post claims, without evidence, that “if there are no F-35s, there is no Vermont Air National Guard.”
But that’s not correct: In 2025, the Maryland Air National Guard lost its flying mission. But Maryland did not lose its Air National Guard. Its 175th Wing now has cyber and civil engineering units with approximately 1,500 members. That’s 500 more members than the Vermont Air National Guard has. Maryland also enjoys correspondingly higher total pay and benefits for its members than the $60 million you touted for Vermont while more than a thousand of our children suffer under the F-35.
California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Ohio all have non-flying Air National Guard Wings, including cyber, space control, and intelligence missions, all fully federally funded, and all appropriate for a city location, in addition to their flying Air National Guard Wings.
So with a different plane or with a non-flying mission, Vermont does not have to sacrifice the hearing and cognitive development of any of its children to keep its Air National Guard in Vermont. Particularly when decency and the military’s own discipline requires the governor and the military officers to protect civilians from military operations.
The attack on Amanda Janoo
Finally, Phil Scott attacks his opponent in this election, Amanda Janoo, by cherry picking only the conclusion part of her emailed statement to Cancel the F-35. He omitted the first 42 words of her statement, which were her reasons for reaching that conclusion. Those are good reasons. How could Phil Scott properly make his case by omitting any response to them?
Governor Phil Scott and his opponent in the race for governor, Amanda Janoo.
Photos by Brian Stevenson and Joey Palumbo, Vermont Public
The people of Vermont deserve a governor who will listen to our town meeting votes, treat our children decently, enforce the military discipline that protects children, safeguard our airmen from responsibility for hurting Vermont children, respond to the reasons raised by his electoral opponents, and tell the truth about what is possible as a mission for our Vermont Air National Guard. Phil Scott has done none of that.