March 2, 2024 | By Sandy Yusen | Correspondent

Editor’s note: This is the first of two candidate profile stories ahead of the Town Meeting Day Waterbury Select Board election. Read Part 2 here.

Town Meeting Day is Tuesday, March 5, and local voters will decide one contested race on the ballot in which three candidates are vying for two one-year positions on the Waterbury Select Board.

*Campaign signs announce the upcoming election. Photo by Gordon Miller*

The contenders are first-time candidates Cheryl Schoolcraft Gloor and Ian Shea and incumbent Kane Sweeney. Roger Clapp, who serves as board chair, is running unopposed for the three-year term being vacated by Vice Chair Dani Kehlmann. Rounding out board are Michael Bard, who is starting the last year of his three-year term, and Alyssa Johnson, who began a three-year term last year.

The candidates share a love of Waterbury and a commitment to ensure the town thrives. Waterbury Roundabout caught up with them for interviews as a complement to the annual candidate survey.

Cheryl Schoolcraft Gloor

Newcomer Cheryl Schoolcraft Gloor takes the long view when it comes to Waterbury having grown up here and experienced many changes in town over the years. “I have been part of this community since forever,” she said.

Gloor was born in Barre in the McFarland House, the historic state office building which used to be a hospital. After her parents divorced, her stepfather bought and refurbished a house in Waterbury. A Harwood graduate, Gloor, 56, grew up in the village, while her husband Tom is from Waterbury Center. Tom’s military service took the Gloors around the country and beyond, moving every few years and living in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Germany.

With an accounting degree from the University of Maryland Global Campus, Gloor worked for various organizations, including a chamber of commerce, a redevelopment firm, and a construction company. After Gloor’s husband retired, the pair returned to Waterbury and purchased a home to be close to parents and other family and friends.

Gloor currently works as a procurement analyst for a federal agency, a role she believes prepares her well for the Select Board. “I’ve learned the first rule in effective decision-making is defining the problem, market research for alternatives and viable solutions, while always being a good steward of limited resources,” she wrote in a letter to Waterbury Roundabout announcing her candidacy.

Gloor said she feels the time is right to run for local office. “I’ve been back for a while and I’ve been watching everything and it seemed to me that some people’s voices weren’t being heard,” she said. “I felt like it was time for me to see if I could help out a little bit more.”

Waterbury today is much different from when she was growing up. “When I first got here, nobody really wanted to live in Waterbury and it just kind of exploded,” Gloor reflected.

She said she wishes there was a broader variety of businesses in town today, recalling that in the past there were more mom-and-pop shops geared towards day-to-day needs. She cites housing as a major concern, seeing younger people leaving town unable to afford starter homes here. “It seems to me like we’re almost building it for people who aren’t here yet, instead of the people that are here,” she said.

“They call Waterbury a crossroads, but we’re at a crossroads right now,” Gloor said. “The Planning Commission is coming up with new zoning. There’s talk of housing. There are a lot of things that are going to come to a head very quickly. This is the time that you want people to have that plan. You want them to have that strategy so that we can maintain the vibe of the town and still fit more people in here.”

As Waterbury plans for the future, Gloor said she hopes development will be thoughtful and balanced. “One thing I worry about is loss of space,” she said. “Just because we have it doesn’t mean we need to build on it. I know there’s a big push to make sure that there’s housing for everybody, and I totally understand that -- but my concern is if we don’t have a really good long-term strategy and long-term plan for how that’s going to be built out, it could get really messy.”

Gloor said living in many places exposed her to cities and towns that weren’t carefully built, so she wants to ensure that Waterbury avoids immediate, short-term fixes. “We want to make sure to take into account not just the next two years but 10, 20 years, the long-term,” she emphasizes. “We want to make sure whatever we do and build has a lasting effect that’s positive. We are a New England village. And I don’t want to see it turn into this big-city feel. I think if we lose that, that would be a shame.” She added, “I hope it doesn’t change dramatically. I like it here and I don’t want to see it get out of control.”

In addition to her professional experience with contracts and working within regulatory parameters, Gloor said she would bring negotiating skills and her long tenure in Waterbury to the Select Board. “I know what it’s been like living here. I’ve seen the ups, I've seen the downs,” she said. “We’re in an up right now, obviously, but we’ve been in a lot of downs, too.”

She said she looks forward to having a voice at the table, and also understands the need to listen, to be accessible to all community members, and to ensure that people are included in decision-making. “I’ve never worked on the Select Board or been in any kind of committee where I’ve had to really do that active listening,” she said. “It will be interesting if I get the chance to do it, and then I’ll have more of a platform to listen to what people are saying.”

In her spare time, Gloor enjoys winter hiking, cross-country skiing, and reading. She and her husband also raise rescue dogs, their most recent being Chevy, a German shorthair pointer mix from Alabama. “We decided to adopt an older dog this time because nobody really wants the older dogs. So we grabbed him and they trucked him up from Alabama to Vermont,” she said joking that he is “clearly not from here, but acclimating.”

For Gloor the mountains around Waterbury have always been home. “I love Waterbury. From wherever side you drive in, you can see the mountain range…you can see the trees. I’m definitely a mountain girl,” she said. “I’ve lived in a lot of places. I’ve lived by the ocean, and I’ve lived in cities. And I like the fact that Waterbury is still a village and has that New England feel to it, but still has a lot of great things to do.”

She recalled as a youngster walking out the front door with her father, putting on skis to ski around town or up to Little River. “There’s still space to do that,” she said.

Serving on the Select Board would be an honor, Gloor said. “I’d do the best I could to ensure I’m doing the best job I can for everybody within the town.”

Ian Shea

Ian Shea has made Waterbury his home since 2016. He lives in town with his partner, Logan Shuman, and their golden retriever Maverick, and is passionate for all that Waterbury offers.

Born and raised in the small Massachusetts town of Topsfield, Shea, 39, crossed through Vermont to attend college at St. Lawrence University in New York. Post-college he focused on sustainable agriculture, working on blueberry farms and traveling between Maine, Prince Edward Island, and South America. He shifted to teaching after his mother, an educator, suggested he try substituting, which led to a teaching program that steered him to a career in education.

An avid skier, Shea spent years teaching in Massachusetts during the week, and on the weekends slogged through Boston traffic to the Mad River Valley, where his friends rented a ski house each winter. Eventually, he decided to move to Vermont. “I just knew I wanted to be in this state,” he said. “It really left an impression on me.”

With a master's degree in hand, he applied for teaching positions in Vermont and was hired for his current role – a science teacher at Stowe Middle School.

During the summer of 2016, Shea completed a bike tour down the Pacific Coast with his father and then moved to Vermont before school began. He chose Waterbury because it was right between his friends near Sugarbush and his job in Stowe. “Waterbury just seemed like the perfect spot to set up shop,” he said.

Finding housing was a challenge even in 2016, but he found an apartment and, shortly afterwards, purchased the house where he lived from the owner, who appreciated his desire to set down roots rather than fix up and flip the home like other prospective buyers. “I’m so forever grateful for that decision and that moment when the stars aligned,” Shea said. “I absolutely still to this day feel like I’m in heaven on cloud nine here.”

Shea revels in the fact that everything that makes him happy is right outside his door – watching ball games from his backyard garden in the summer, learning about beekeeping, skiing a few runs after his classes, or biking on nearby trails. He calls Waterbury “kind of an amazing insane community.”

Shea credits Dani Kehlmann, who is stepping down from the Select Board, with suggesting he consider running for local office. He said he sees this election as a chance to take part in helping sustain the community he loves. “I said absolutely, this seems like an amazing opportunity that I don’t want to let pass me by,” he said.

Shea compared the opportunity to taking a similar leap in assuming the role of president of the teacher’s union in Stowe at the suggestion of coworkers who saw his leadership potential. During his six-year term, the union grappled with district mergers and break-ups, as well as the pandemic. “I look back on those years and feel really happy about the work I did and the improvement I was able to make,” he said. “I feel so fortunate to have that holistic look at our school system.”

Likewise, he said he views serving on the Select Board as, “How can I ensure the long-term viability of this place, to make sure that it maintains the awesomeness that it has right now?”

In running for elected office, Shea said he recognizes the learning curve ahead but he conveys excitement about the chance to cultivate an understanding of town dynamics. “I see this as being able to serve for the greater good, but also for me personally to better understand how small-town government works,” he said. “Being a well-connected member of this community and friendly with the business owners in town makes me feel like I’ve got a decent grasp on things. I’ll need to get a little more depth on the issues but at least I’m starting from a place where I’ve got some knowledge of how it works.”

Shea cites flood mitigation and housing as important issues for Waterbury. “I think the housing piece is certainly something that we really need to put a lot of energy, thought and work towards,” he said.

With the role also comes the need to balance competing interests. While housing is a desperate need, Shea said he also recognizes the importance of preserving the character of town and its open spaces. Similarly, he values conservation having been an environmental science major and being someone who enjoys outdoor recreation for his physical and mental health. “Another reason why I love Waterbury is that these things can co-exist,” he said. “There are a lot of different issues that fall in that same category where there’s a balance that needs to be maintained. And issues like that have to be handled very thoughtfully and respectfully.”

Drawing on his teaching experience, Shea said hie approach as a Select Board member would involve expanding his knowledge of the issues facing the town, and “hearing what the community wants and listening to the science.”

He is optimistic that knowledge can help create consensus. “I feel like people are more aligned than they might otherwise realize if they see the picture holistically,” he said. “I feel like that’s gotten tougher as the years go on, it feels like people are very convinced. But that’s again why serving in this role, and really doing the hard work to educate yourself on these things, is time well spent.”

Shea said he wants voters to know that he is committed to Waterbury. “I hope to be here for a long time…a very long time. I’d like to live out my days here,” he said. “I feel like I found something special in Waterbury and want to make sure that it continues to be as exceptional and amazing as it is right now. For the long haul.”

Kane Sweeney

Kane Sweeney is running for re-election, after serving his first one-year term on the Select Board. Drawing from his experience as a career chef, Sweeney is a vocal advocate for finding solutions to issues faced by working people, which he believes is critical to the future of Waterbury.

Born in Burlington and raised in Randolph, Sweeney’s family has deep roots in Vermont. Although his mother and sister were both teachers, he admits the classroom wasn’t his forte. He did excel in history, social studies and English, and is an avid reader of books and news to feed his curiosity about history and how things work. “That’s why I love living in Vermont,” he said. “There’s a lot of history around here.”

Sweeney, 31, graduated from a vocational high school in Vermont in 2011, at a time when “there was a lot happening in the world,” he said recalling the Occupy Wall Street movement, President Barak Obama in office, and in Vermont the transition from a Republican Gov. Jim Douglas to Democrat Peter Shumlin. Sweeney followed his passion for music to Montpelier to be part of the Central Vermont music scene and then found his first cooking job as a prep cook at the deli counter of Hunger Mountain Co-Op where he also joined the labor union.

“So there’s a lot of political change going on, and I thought I could better learn about history through the eyes of labor,” he recounted. “And I quickly learned as a young laborer that we get shafted a lot.”

Sweeney experienced the challenge of take-home pay not keeping up with increased housing costs. “As wages go up, the cost of living goes up again, and then it’s a vicious cycle…so working people historically can never get a foothold,” he said.

After leaving for a brief stint in California where the cost of living was even higher, Sweeney returned to Waterbury. He was homeless initially, but found a small apartment and work as a chef at a local restaurant. His coworkers and friends continued to struggle with insufficient wages, sharply rising rents, limited housing stock, and deteriorating roads.

Sweeney said believes that for Waterbury to thrive, it needs people who can live and work in town. “We saw it during the floods, we took care of each other. And though this isn’t water in your basement or your first floor, it is an emergency,” he said. “And we need to take care of each other here or we’re not going to have a town.”

That became his platform as a Select Board candidate last year. “I had come to a few Select Board meetings saying we need to figure out how to build affordable housing. I started feeling like our calls and pleas as a warning – for this is going to get worse – were falling on deaf ears,” he said. “Waterbury has always been a working town, from the State Complex to where Darn Tough is now – where Green Mountain Coffee used to be. And the blue-collar people in this town don’t feel as represented as I feel they should be. And I said you know what, I’m going to run. I’m going to see what I can do about it.”

On the Select Board, he has worked to keep affordable housing on the agenda. He advocated for the creation of the Housing Task Force and an emergency preparedness committee after last summer's flood. Now, as his first term draws to a close, he said wants to see more projects through to completion.

“We got movement on affordable housing, we got movement on roads. But we’re nowhere near done,” he said. “We have not gone leaps and bounds. And I feel like we need to go leaps and bounds.”

Sweeney has seen Waterbury change over the decade he’s lived here. “When I first arrived in Waterbury when I was 21, it seemed a lot younger. We had a flourishing brewery scene, a flourishing bar scene.”

That influx of younger people has waned, he said. “Waterbury has been a hub for the newest thing. Coffee, ice cream, right? Waterbury has always been this weird stepping stone for these explosions in culture. Green Mountain Coffee turned into this huge factory. Ben & Jerry’s landed here and became the hub of local ice cream, and then we became the hub of local beer. So every decade or so something will happen that creates the draw that brings young people in. I am wondering what that next thing is going to be.”

Sweeney said he thinks music venues could draw a younger, creative demographic to participate and grow the community. But he worries about the sense of apathy among young people who often don’t voice opinions on issues and, in many cases, choose not to vote. Politically active from a young age, Sweeney said, “You should vote in your local election, because you can see it. You can see with your eyes what happens when you do that.”

In this election, Sweeney said his message is informed by his experience in the past year. “This time around I’m telling people that you’re not ignored,” he said. “I think I’ve been able to show that it’s very easy to get the ball rolling. To work on it. But you need the folks who care about what you care about in positions where changes can be made. And that’s why I’m running again. I want the working people of Waterbury to know that the town has not forgotten about them. Because there’s a lot of us.”

In an ideal world, Sweeney said he envisions a town with a 2% vacancy rate, where people can afford to live, work, and recreate. “Waterbury is a beautiful place. Ethan Allen once described this valley as heaven. And to me it feels like that. But right now, heaven’s a little rocky. This is a beautiful place and every person whether they’re a millionaire or they wash dishes should be able to enjoy this place the same.”

Find more Town Meeting Day coverage here including a Waterbury Select Board candidate survey here.

Part 1: Select Board candidates share their vision for Waterbury

Cheryl Schoolcraft Gloor

Ian Shea

Kane Sweeney

UPDATE: State police report missing teen was located

Part 2: Unopposed, Clapp eyes a three-year Select Board term