Deadline nears for candidates to get on Town Meeting Day ballot

January 22, 2023 | By Lisa Scagliotti

Vermont Town Meeting Day may not be until March 7, but the deadline for candidates to file to get their names on the ballot is quickly approaching and recent action by the Vermont Legislature once again would give local governing boards the option to skip in-person town meeting voting due to lingering concern about gatherings and COVID-19. 

Waterbury town officials will decide whether to bring back in-person town meeting this year, or put all questions on the paper ballot. File photo by Lisa Scagliotti

By 5 p.m. on Jan. 30, anyone looking to run for local offices such as seats on select boards, school boards, boards of listers, library and cemetery commissions, etc. needs to file a petition and consent form with their town clerk’s office. The number of signatures needed depends on the number of registered voters in the town – state law requires 30 signatures or a number equivalent to 1% of the town’s registered voters, whichever is fewer. 

Those signing petitions must be registered to vote in the town where the candidate is looking to run. Town clerks advise candidates to get a few extra signatures, just in case some turn out to not be registered. 

In Waterbury, candidates need 30 signatures. Next door in Duxbury, Town Clerk Maureen Harvey says the voter checklist has 1,158 names, so candidates need only 12 valid signatures on their petitions.

The ballots will take shape soon after the Jan. 30 deadline.

Meanwhile, local select boards and school boards are working on putting the finishing touches on their draft budgets and other questions that will be printed on the official warnings for town meetings, regardless of the format for elections that the boards decide to use. 

The Vermont House and Senate last week both passed H.42 which would extend provisions created during the pandemic allowing towns to switch to all paper-ballot voting, delay their in-person meetings until later in the year, and conduct informational meetings online. The bill is on Gov. Phil Scott’s desk for a signature. 

Harwood School Board: 8 of 14 seats on the ballot

The local board with the most positions to be decided in the March election is the Harwood Unified Union School District School Board where 8 of 14 seats will be on ballots across five of the six member towns. 

Waterbury, Duxbury and Fayston each have two seats to be filled in the election; Moretown and Waitsfield each have one; neither seat is up for election this year in Warren. 

Waterbury

Two of Waterbury’s four school board seats are on the ballot this year. With the largest population in the district, Waterbury has the most seats per town. Kelley Hackett, who currently serves as the board’s vice chair, is ending her first three-year term. She said she has filed to run for re-election to the one-year opening from Waterbury. 

Jake Pitman was appointed to the board in October to fill a vacancy. Appointments last until the next election. His seat has one year remaining in a three-year term. Pitman said he intends to file to run for the three-year seat that Hackett now holds.

Duxbury

Both of Duxbury’s two seats are on the ballot this year. After being appointed in 2021, Cindy Senning ran in 2022 for the remaining year left for her seat. She told voters at the Duxbury Jan. 7 community pre-town meeting that she will run in March. 

The town’s other school board member is Life LeGeros who was appointed in 2022 to the seat formerly held by Torrey Smith. No one ran for that position last March. LeGeros said he would run this year for the remaining two years of that term.

Fayston

Both of Fayston’s current school board members were appointed in 2022. Kim Laidlaw was appointed to the seat formerly held by Tim Jones who did not seek re-election last year. She told Waterbury Roundabout this weekend that although she intended to run for the remaining two years for that seat, she recently decided she needs to prioritize new obligations caring for a family member. 

“It’s with regret,” Laidlaw said, stressing that she has enjoyed her short time on the board. “I hope I can contribute again in the future.”

Laidlaw said she is happy with the school district’s leadership with new Superintendent Mike Leichliter on board since last summer and the current school board members. She added that she hopes other Fayston residents would consider running for her seat. “I want the community to know it’s open,” she said. 

Mike Bishop is Fayston’s other board member. He was appointed in to succeed Theresa Membrino who resigned last spring. That seat has one year remaining in its term. Bishop could not be reached for comment on whether he intends to run in March.   

Waitsfield 

Christine Sullivan is the only remaining member of the school board who has served since the district unified in 2017. She served on the Waitsfield School Board pre-merger and was on the committee that drafted the articles of agreement to unify the Harwood district. She then was the unified board’s first chair. 

Also a member of the Waitsfield Select Board, Sullivan said she has decided to run for re-election to the town position, and not for another school board term. Sullivan during the pandemic began working as a substitute teacher in the district under a waiver from the state Agency of Education allowing school board members to work in schools. That commitment currently is full-time, she said.

So far one candidate has emerged to run for the open seat. The Waitsfield Elementary School weekly newsletter to families on Friday, Jan. 19, carried an announcement that J. B. Weir is running for election. A parent of two elementary school children, Weir works for the Town of Waitsfield as its Planning and Zoning administrator and is chair of the board of directors at Neck of the Woods childcare center. 

Moretown 

At the end of her first term on the board, Lisa Mason says she will not seek re-election this year. Mason said she could not commit to another three-year stint on the board.

“But I have truly enjoyed my time and felt it to be very important and consequential work,” she said. “I think it is a pretty exciting time to be joining the board, so maybe there will be more interest than usual.”

Waterbury municipal elections 

Some key positions on the Waterbury election ballot in March will be three seats on the Waterbury Select Board (two one-year seats and one three-year term), a three-year lister position, and a five-year term on the Library Commission. 

Select Board members Alyssa Johnson and Roger Clapp are both in one-year seats having been elected in 2022 to their first term each. Both told Waterbury Roundabout last week that they plan to run for re-election. Clapp said he would seek another one-year term. Johnson said she plans to run for the three-year term.

Chris Viens currently is in the three-year seat and has served on the Select Board since 2012. He said last week that he has not yet decided his election plans.  

Also on the ballot will be the town clerk and treasurer positions. Karen Petrovic was appointed to those offices last fall when former Town Clerk and Treasurer Carla Lawrence stepped down. The appointment was until the March election and Petrovic says she will run for election to those offices in March.

Petrovic last week asked the Select Board to consider adding a question to the Town Meeting Day ballot asking voters to consider extending the town clerk and treasurer terms from one year to three years each. The board voted unanimously in favor of putting the question on the ballot. Voters would decide that in March and, if the change is approved, the term lengths would change starting in 2024. 

The Waterbury Select Board will discuss the format that Town Meeting will take this year at its meeting Monday, Jan. 23. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Waterbury traditionally held an in-person town meeting to conduct all business with the exception of elections which are done by paper ballot in all-day voting. Only those present at the meeting would vote on the town budget and other financial questions. In 2021 and 2022, Waterbury did not hold an in-person meeting due to the pandemic. All questions were decided by paper ballot in the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. voting period. 

Given the bill recently approved in Montpelier by the Legislature and awaiting Gov. Phil Scott’s signature, Waterbury officials will consider whether to return to the in-person format or to put all questions on the Australian ballot. 

Duxbury elections

Duxbury residents in November voted at a special town meeting to change their Town Meeting Day election format to all paper ballot voting starting this year. It then held a special community meeting on Jan. 7 to give voters a chance to ask questions about the draft budget and hear from potential candidates for office. Come March 7, all questions and elections will be on the ballot for all-day voting. 

Among the local offices voters will find on the ballot will be three seats on the Duxbury Selectboard, a lister position, a Budget Committee seat, three spots on the Cemetery Commission, two constables and the position of delinquent tax collector.

Selectboard Chair Mari Pratt and member Mike Marotto both have announced that they would not seek re-election. Board member Jamie Ervin said she will run for the three-year seat. 

Waterbury Roundabout will follow up with town clerks after the Jan. 30 filing deadline for full lists of candidates who will be on the March 7 ballots.

Should a candidate decide to run after the Jan. 30 deadline, they may run a write-in campaign for any of the local offices listed on the Town Meeting Day ballot. Any offices with no candidates elected on March 7 would be filled by the appropriate governing body — select boards or the school board. Appointments to local offices run until the next regular local election which would be March 2024.