Duxbury opts-in to legal weed, narrowly approves $250k for highway garage

Duxbury Town Clerk Maureen Harvey had three drive-through elections in 2020 before Tuesday’s Town Meeting. June, August and early November were all a lot warmer. Photo by Gordon Miller

Greg Trulson, Bonnie and Bill Morse inside the warming area at the Duxbury polls on Tuesday. Supplies include coffee, doughnuts, face masks and a bulk package of hand warmers. Duxbury conducted its fourth drive-through election of the pandemic on Town Meeting Day. Photo by Gordon Miller.

Duxbury has the drive-through setup figured out for town elections. Photo by Gordon Miller.

Duxbury election worker Shawnee Perry collects ballots from Scott Woodard in the drive-through voting loop at the town highway garage and town offices along Rt. 100. Photo by Gordon Miller

Curbside service as Shawnee Perry collects completed ballots and juggles the clipboard supply. Photo by Gordon Miller.

Duxbury Town Clerk Maureen Harvey answers questions in the voting drive-through. Photo by Gordon Miller.

Shawnee Perry manages the ballot box as Lars Dickerson votes in the drive-through loop at the Duxbury town offices and highway garage on Tuesday. Photo by Gordon Miller

We hear there might have been a heater inside Town Clerk Maureen Harvey's plywood shelter. Photo by Gordon Miller.

Spotted in Waterbury on Monday. Photo by Gordon Miller.

Duxbury’s vote over whether to fix the town highway garage was closer than the decision that voters made Tuesday to opt-in to the legal cannabis marketplace coming together in Vermont in the next year or so. 

Just under 340 of the town’s roughly 1,200 voters – about 28 percent – cast ballots in the Town Meeting Day election. Those voting or dropping off ballots on Tuesday did so with the drive-through method they used with success three times in 2020. 

The $1,051,267 town budget got a resounding approval, 242-81. A question to spend up to $145,000 on a new tandem truck for the highway department passed similarly 220-98. But the question on whether to bond for up to $250,000 to improve the failing highway garage passed narrowly, 188-136. 

The cannabis question, however, passed 200-125. 

Town Clerk Maureen Harvey provided results from the day’s election in which none of the offices on the ballot were contested including three seats on the Duxbury Selectboard won by incumbent Jerry McMahan, returning for a three-year term, and newcomers Mike Marotto and Brian Robinson, each winning one-year seats. 

Duxbury voters were the most divided on the proposed $40.39 million Harwood Unified Union School budget, voting 167-161 in favor. Across the six-town district, it won easily, 1,808 to 1,180. A separate school district question to allocate a $2.2 million surplus with $1 million going into a maintenance reserve fund, $600,000 going into the fiscal year 2022 budget and just over $615,000 set aside for future operations or maintenance also won 1,931 to 1,045. Duxbury was divided on that item, too, voting 171-158 in favor.  

Duxbury elected a new member to the HUUSD School Board, Brian Dalla Mura, who ran unopposed for the remaining two years to the term Alec Adams won in 2020; Adams resigned earlier this year. 

All other items on the Duxbury passed including a question to put $20,000 into the emergency storm damage escrow account, 265-58, and authorization for putting $107,000 into the capital reserve fund, 224-93. Article 5 set Oct. 8 as the due date for property tax payments this year.

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Duxbury results provided by Town Clerk Maureen Harvey

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