Pandemic puts everything on the Town Meeting Day ballot
January 30, 2021 | By Lisa Scagliotti
Several contested elections, a question on legal weed commerce in Waterbury, a budget requiring taxes be set at a rate below what voters backed in 2020, and 25 separate requests to fund nonprofit organizations and social service agencies.
That sums up what Waterbury voters will find on the March 2 Town Meeting Day ballot now that the Waterbury Select Board last week finalized the details of the warning and candidates filed their forms to run for office.
Given the 33 articles plus elections and school district questions, requesting a ballot to vote at home and turn in by March 2 might be more practical than filling in all of those ovals while standing at one of the eight voting booth spaces set up in the Thatcher Brook Primary School gym on election day.
Much like the 2020 elections held during the COVID-19 pandemic, state and local officials are urging voters to get their ballots early to return by mail or drop off at their town offices before March 2.
Town Meeting Day this year will skip the actual in-person meeting due to restrictions on gatherings to prevent the spread of coronavirus. That means that all of the typical business conducted at the floor meeting on Town Meeting Day morning will be handled with questions on the paper (a.k.a. “Australian”) ballot.
The state Legislature made allowances to adjust election procedures for Town Meeting 2021 including putting all questions on the ballot. Towns that typically hold an in-person meeting would return to that practice next year.
Unlike the most recent election in November, however, ballots will not be mailed automatically to everyone registered to vote. Town Clerk Carla Lawrence said people may call or email her now to request ballots by mail. With wording just completed this week, printers are busy producing ballots that must be available by Feb. 10, according to the state elections law. Town reports also will be published and available by mid-February.
The one meeting voters can attend before voting will be a virtual informational session with the select board to discuss and answer questions regarding the proposed 2021 town budget and any of the questions on the ballot. The meeting will be held as an online video conference at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 23. Details on how to attend or watch that meeting will be announced soon.
And while early voting is encouraged, Lawrence and her crew of loyal elections workers will still run the polling location at Thatcher Brook school from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on March 2 for people to vote in person. Public health protocols including mask-wearing, distancing, sanitizing, etc. will be in effect just like the 2020 elections. The lengthy ballot, however, may mean some waiting time.
Candidates for every office
After Monday’s filing deadline for candidates to get on the ballot, each of Waterbury’s open offices have at least one contender -- and several have competition.
According to Lawrence, there are multiple candidates for the seats to be filled on the Waterbury Select Board and the Harwood Union School Board.
Three of the five seats on the select board are on the ballot this year:
The three-year seat now held by Mark Frier will be up for election with candidates Scott Culver and Dani Kehlmann seeking that spot.
Voters will have four choices for the two one-year terms on the board. Incumbent Katie Martin is seeking re-election after serving her first one-year term. Nat Fish, who holds the other one-year seat, is not running again. The other contenders along with Martin are Frier, Brock Coderre and Noah Fishman.
All of the other candidates for town offices are unopposed:
Lawrence is seeking re-election as town clerk and treasurer.
John Woodruff is running for re-election to a five-year term on the Cemetery Commission.
Maroni Minter is seeking a five-year term on the Library Commission.
Bob Butler is running for a three-year seat on the Board of Listers.
Jeffrey Kilgore will be on the ballot unopposed for the office of Town Moderator, a position that will not be needed on March 2 because there will not be an in-person meeting. Because the term is for one year, however, should a special town meeting be called anytime before March 2022, Kilgore would fill that role.
In addition to the town government positions, three of Waterbury’s four seats on the Harwood Union Unified School Board are to be filled by voters on Town Meeting Day and there is some competition there as well.
There is a three-way race to fill the two full three-year terms: incumbent Michael Frank, Scott Culver who is also a select board candidate and Marlena Tucker-Fishman. Frank is currently on the board having been appointed to a seat in 2020 to fill an unexpired term.
Board Chair Caitlin Hollister is running unopposed for the one year remaining in the term now held by Frank.
Less is more for property taxes
Most of the questions on the ballot involve spending and tax dollars. Voters will be asked to set two dates for tax payments to be due this year -- Aug. 13 and Nov. 5.
The two key spending questions for voters are whether to fund the various capital improvement accounts with $1,678,025. These accounts pay for long-term investments such as road paving and equipment purchases.
The overall budget that the select board arrived at totals $4,052,335 that’s broken down into three main categories: $2,335,585 for the general fund, $1,428,575 for highway expenses and $508,175 for the library.
The final budget amount will be determined by the results of the 25 additional spending requests totalling $56,900 that voters will see on the ballot and decide individually. These fund a variety of community organizations and agencies and range from $100 for the Central Vermont State Police Advisory Board and $800 for the Waterbury Community Band, to $2,500 apiece for the LEAP energy committee and MakerSphere arts cooperative, and $7,323 requested by Green Mountain Transit. The largest request is $20,000 for the Waterbury Area Senior Association which is in addition to $10,000 already in the general fund budget for a total contribution of $30,000.
Each organization requesting funds from the taxpayers will have a short report included in the town’s Annual Report.
The select board worked with Municipal Manager Bill Shepeluk and department heads to arrive at the final budget figures that will require a tax rate of $0.53 per $100 of assessed property value. Voters will be asked to approve a rate “up to” that amount because the overall grand list will be determined later in the spring and changes to the combined property values due to additions in the past year could result in a slightly lower rate being applied when tax bills are done this summer.
The $0.53 is actually less than the $0.55 that voters approved for a tax rate at Town Meeting in 2020. However, given the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down town government and so many businesses, town officials cut spending over the course of the year. When tax bills went out in November, they were calculated with a rate of just $0.51 per $100 of property value.
So the proposed 2021 tax rate is less than what voters approved in 2020, but slightly above what taxpayers paid last year.
A special article looks to the future
This year’s warning contains just one unique question for voters, asking them to consider whether Waterbury should allow businesses related to a new legal marketplace for recreational marijuana to operate here.
Article 8 is worded to encompass retailers and operations licensed to grow and process cannabis products as well. The question was put in the ballot as the next step following a new state law approved in 2020 that paves the way for the legal cultivation, processing, and retail sales of cannabis in addition to the handful of medical marijuana dispensaries already in place in Vermont.
Rules governing the new system still must be worked out and a regulatory board to oversee the next steps has not yet been appointed by Gov. Phil Scott. Nonetheless, communities are required to hold a vote in order to “opt in” so that new businesses can be established as the marketplace is established over the next year or so.
The select board has heard from several individuals interested in establishing new cannabis businesses and agreed to pose the question to voters to determine early in the process whether the community is open to new commerce that the state law will permit.