What's on Your Ballot? Voting Local on Town Meeting Day

President Donald Trump’s first month in office has been nothing short of chaotic. With federal funding, trade and U.S. foreign aid upended or threatened, it may be a relief for Vermonters to hear that on March 4, Town Meeting Day, they will grapple with down-to-earth, close-to-home issues such as flood relief, housing needs and “community conduct.”

In Montpelier, residents will decide whether to levy a 1 percent sales tax to pay for flood resiliency infrastructure. In West Windsor, voters will consider repealing a short-term rental ordinance that requires rental owners to apply for a town license. And in Barnard, residents will decide whether to rent the former fire department building to BarnArts Center for the Arts.

While some people are questioning the health of and threats to U.S. democracy, civic engagement is alive and well in the Green Mountains. Seven Days examined what’s on the ballot in more than 200 communities and offers this look at seven questions representative of the decisions voters will face.

When in Brattleboro

Last September, after police started getting more complaints about antisocial behavior downtown, the selectboard passed a community conduct ordinance.

It prohibited “public urination and defecation,” “unreasonable noise,” “blocking walkways and/or entrances,” and more. Signs around town displayed the code of conduct.

Soon afterward, opponents started circulating a petition that called for a special vote of Brattleboro’s representative town meeting. (Brattleboro uses the “representative town meeting” form of government, in which about 140 elected members conduct most of the business that in other towns is open to all voters.) The petitioners argued that the selectboard had overstepped its powers; the ordinance was unclear; and it stigmatized members of the community. At the resulting special meeting in December, representatives voted 76-55 to rescind the ordinance.

The issue is back. The selectboard, whose members fear that the December special meeting did not reflect the views of the whole community, has put an advisory question on the March 4 ballot that asks all local voters “whether to advise the Brattleboro Selectboard to enact an ordinance that establishes clear boundaries for acceptable behavior and conduct in the downtown.”

Town manager John Potter said the measure will gauge the interest of a broader swath of the population in regulating conduct. “Is it just tweaks that are needed, or is it just, like, don’t even waste your time on this?” Potter said.

Multiple Choice

On Town Meeting Day in 2024, voters in the Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools district rejected its proposed budget. An amended plan called for a controversial cost-cutting measure: closing the Roxbury Village School and busing its 40 or so students to Union Elementary School in Montpelier.

The Town of Roxbury sued the school district in an attempt to prevent a vote on the amended budget in April. But the lawsuit was dismissed, the budget passed, and the school has closed. Now, Roxbury residents must decide the school building’s fate.

Article 4 on the ballot asks townspeople whether they would like to buy the building from the school district for $1. Article 6 asks whether, if the school is purchased, the town should spend $75,000 for utilities and upkeep for a year. Yet another article asks voters to choose between three options for the building if it is purchased: reselling it but retaining a portion for the town’s use; consolidating town services in it, which would mean selling or leasing other town buildings; or leasing the property.

“Nothing is straightforward or easy here,” said Rene Bouchard, chair of the Roxbury Selectboard. “We need to make these decisions as a community. We need people to show up and vote on Town Meeting Day.”

Here’s the Poop

Illustration Credit: © Seamartini | Dreamstime

Across Vermont, voters will decide whether to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a decidedly unsexy — but critically important — public investment: wastewater upgrades. South Burlington, Rutland City, Middlebury and Bethel are among the communities pursuing improvements to their sewage and water systems. Burlington’s $152 million bond proposal is the biggest.

The timing is not random. Most sewage plants across the state came online in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Michelle Kolb, a section supervisor with the Department of Environmental Conservation. Under state regulation, the treatment plants must be evaluated by an engineer every 20 years. The scrutiny has revealed deficiencies in the aging plants.

“Sometimes there’s just no avoiding a really large overhaul of the treatment system,” Kolb said.

Some towns want to upgrade their sewer works to accommodate critically needed new housing. Other communities, including Middlebury, are proposing improvements in anticipation of new regulations.

A Little Help From the Town

For months, Thetford Town Service Officer Jessica Eaton encouraged a local man to file for Social Security Disability Insurance. He failed to do so. When she sat down with him, she discovered why: He couldn’t read.

Situations such as this motivated the Thetford Selectboard to propose establishing a social services coordinator position. The coordinator would receive a $25,000 salary and work 10 hours per week.

While Thetford already employs a community nurse and a town services officer, no one aids residents who struggle to obtain the financial support they need. Applications can be arduous. To receive the benefits of Social Security Disability Insurance, for example, applicants must prove they have a serious medical condition and provide an in-depth work history. The average acceptance rate for initial applicants is 22 percent.

“People really need guidance as to how to get out of a hole on a permanent basis,” said Steve Tofel, a selectboard member. The town’s chief of police, Michael Scruggs, hopes the position would free up his understaffed department. Police currently spend too much time helping people in crisis, Scruggs said.

Some residents have voiced concern about adding to the town’s payroll. But Tofel argues that the new position would free up the community nurse, town police and town service officer to focus on their existing responsibilities.

The proposal is for a one-year contract. If residents are dissatisfied, Tofel noted, they could nix the idea next Town Meeting Day.

Policing Police

Like other communities, Bennington has tried to find the balance between keeping the community safe and holding its police accountable. After an extensive review in 2022, the town created a Community Policing Advisory Review Board to act as a liaison between the Bennington Police Department and the broader community.

Selectboard chair Jeannie Jenkins said the board is interested in a partnership with the police, “not taking a hammer and hitting staff over the head.”

While the advisory board reviews results of the department’s investigations of complaints against officers, it does not look at primary evidence, such as video footage. That power lies with the selectboard.

Now, a charter review task force has proposed giving the advisory board the right to go into executive session to directly review and discuss video footage and other evidence.

Community Policing Advisory Review Board chair Kelly Carroll, who is also running for the town’s selectboard, is opposed to the proposal and to giving added responsibility to the review board.

“I worry about a perceived lack of transparency,” Carroll said. “I don’t want Bennington to go the defund-the-police direction.”

Help With Housing

When floodwaters inundated Plainfield, the town lost some of its much-needed housing, including the Heartbreak Hotel, an eight-unit apartment building that collapsed and washed away in the Great Brook.

Plainfield residents are rallying around a homegrown solution. A committee of 16 volunteers has proposed creating 30 to 40 buildable lots on approximately 11 acres of land near Main Street and East Hill Road. Two residents have offered to sell the land to the town. The goal is to break ground by this summer.

The town would extend sewer lines, water and electricity to the parcels. Lots would sell for about $40,000 apiece to prospective homeowners or builders.

“We’ve become reliant on private developers in Vermont,” said Arion Thiboumery, project coordinator and owner of the destroyed Heartbreak Hotel. “This project is an attempt to show that they’re not required.”

Voters must decide whether to approve a zoning revision allowing houses to be built closer together. Voters are also being asked to establish a reserve fund for the project. While the effort is not expected to cost taxpayers anything, the village would act as a financial intermediary, Planning Commission chair Will Colgan explained.

Culvert Census

Frank Seawright, an 81-year-old amateur cartographer, was checking out vtculverts.org, an inventory of Vermont’s water channels run by the state’s 11 regional planning commissions, when he noticed omissions.

The town of Windham, where he resides and once served as selectboard chair, hadn’t added any data since 2019 and had not logged culverts on private land. While towns aren’t required to update their culvert count, they are strongly encouraged to do so, and to include privately owned ones.

“I started, you know, being a pest about it,” Seawright said. Then he gathered 22 signatures he needed to put his concern on the town meeting ballot. That’s why voters will decide whether to authorize an inventory of all public and private culverts in the town.

Jeff Nugent, senior planner at the Windham Regional Commission, applauded Seawright’s effort.

During increasingly common extreme rain events, culverts that are clogged with debris or are just too small can cause streams to race around them, washing away roads. Repairs can be expensive for towns and private owners.

That’s why regional planning commissions maintain the online database, relying on town volunteers to input culverts’ location, size and condition. The data enable towns to coordinate upgrades and repairs.

Some towns provide timely data updates, while others lag, Nugent said. There is no requirement for these updates, but the towns that make them can enjoy a financial benefit when they obtain certain grants.

Nugent has encouraged towns to inventory private culverts, too. That’s because private culverts can actually cause big problems that impact nearby public infrastructure.

Rachel Hellman covers Vermont’s small towns for Seven Days. She is a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Find out more at reportforamerica.org.

The original print version of this article was headlined “What’s on Your Ballot? | Wastewater issues, “community conduct'” and housing round out the issues Vermont voters will decide on March 4″