state of nature
It’s been a week! Many thanks to everyone who voted this past week whether in person on last Saturday, at the polls on Tuesday (or both), or absentee. Town Meeting requires the work and collaboration of many: Town Hall staff; our Moderator; the Clerk’s office; our Justices of the Peace; WCTV; Pentangle Arts; Change the World Kids; and the local Cub Scouts of America troop.
You can find all the Town Meeting results here.
Meanwhile in Montpelier…
Our legislators are still trying to work out education funding. If you haven’t already, please take the time to complete this survey from our Windsor County State Senators (link here).
Reading/Watching:
What It Takes to Close the Poverty Gap, The Daily Show
Do Democrats need to learn how to build? The New Yorker
Let’s stop talking and let’s start building, Bennington Banner
Gov. Scott Appoints Former Lawmaker Brian Campion to State Board of Education, Seven Days
advanced citizenship
Third winter, is that you? I was celebrating the snow melting yesterday but Mother Nature has made a fool of me yet again.
I know in a few short months, I’ll be complaining about the humidity but what I wouldn’t give for some melty ice cream on my stoop right now.
Ok, let’s get into it.
Hurrah for Town Meeting!
If you haven’t heard, Woodstock voters will be gathering on tomorrow at 10am Town Hall for part 1 of Town Meeting. I suggest arriving ahead of time to get a seat and a parking spot.
Many, many thanks to Change the World Kids who are sending two babysitters to watch kids 4+ upstairs in the big conference room until 1pm.
It is very likely we will be doing a paper ballot for the article related to the elimination of the lister’s position. So, prepare yourselves for some orderly single filing in the auditorium.
If you are an organization that has a petitioned article or if you are running for office, I highly encourage you to attend to speak to the community on behalf of your cause or yourself :)
Here’s your ballot guide (again)
Part 2 of Town Meeting Day will be Tuesday, where voters can vote by paper ballot from 7am-7pm at Town Hall. You can still pick up an absentee ballot today during the clerk’s office hours.
Ok, let’s go do our civic duty! You can email or text me with questions about the ballot or about the process.
Upcoming:
Make tomorrow a double header! VSSA Humane Society is hosting a rabies clinic at WUMS/HS from 1-3pm. $15 per shot (which is sadly and staggeringly cheaper than the human vaccine)
Twin Pines Housing Trust is hosting two open houses in Woodstock this Sunday.
On Farm Restaurant Amendment public hearing is scheduled for March 31st
Reading/Listening:
Risky business? Volunteering in a small community, The Vermont Standard
How Progressives Froze the American Dream, Plain English (thanks to Justin for sharing)
in times like these
Wow, we made it through January by the skin of our teeth! I apologize for the delay since my last email - my household has had a menagerie of illnesses that had me asking myself why do we even send the kids to school in January?
Ok, let’s catch up:
Town Meeting Prep
The budget has been finalized and Town Reports are heading to the printers as we speak. We have two Town Meeting Days in Woodstock:
Saturday, March 1st at 10am in Town Hall to vote on the floor for Articles 1-15
Tuesday, March 4th to vote by Australian ballot 7am-7pm for officers and petitioned articles, as well as the school district ballot
The Selectboard decided not to take up the issue of changing the voting mechanism this year, given we have what some might consider a controversial article around the elimination of listers. I am working on securing childcare for those that wish to vote on Saturday.
The board will be available at various places over the next month to talk about the budget, articles, and anything else Town Meeting-related. Here is the tentative schedule:
2/10: South Woodstock Country Store - 9am
2/12: Mon Vert Cafe - 10am
2/17: Ottauquechee Yacht Club - 5pm
2/19: Abracadabra Coffee - 9am
2/24: South Woodstock Country Store: 9am
Kitty will update the schedule on the Town website if there are any changes.
I know the language of some of these measures is overwhelming - I tried to break it down as simply as I could.
Reading:
Middlebury College, developer and town join forces on major housing project, Vermont Public
Ways and Means: Legislative Lawyers Are as Busy as Heck, SevenDays
new year, new song
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful few weeks of holidays, no school, and in the case of my house, gifts of chocolate cake.
Ok, we’ve had many meetings since my last update, so let’s get into it:
FY26 Budget
The board has gone back and forth about several potential cuts, but to be honest, none of them change the reality that we are still playing catch up to a historically underfunded budget. Our municipal manager has said both last budget season and this that we are about $100,000-$200,000 away from a healthy budget. We have increased capital reserves to account for upcoming maintenance and costs for a lot of our aging assets as well as new costs (such as the new fire engine). We are currently planning to cut about $13k from the Clerk’s budget since they appear to be overstaffed, looking at the vault hours and recording fees. Other cuts we discussed but kept: annual fireworks (which we will be asking another organization to step forward and take on after this year); and increasing the employee contribution to insurance premiums by 2%. I also previously requested funding for a Planning Director, but rescinded the request in lieu of something I will write about soon.
At the request of the Village Trustees, the Town and Village are increasing our disbursement from the Woodstock VT Endowment Fund, which is a fund created by the Rockefellers when they donated their mansion to the Park to pay for the loss in property tax revenue. This will buy down the tax rate for the Town and the Village by a little more than 1% and 2%, respectively. This is not a long term solution, in my opinion, as buying down taxes in the near term has historically meant rebounds (see: Phil Scott and the 2022 education surplus). The most effective thing the Village can do to achieve affordability in the near future is to merge with the Town. The most effective thing we can do as a Town to become more affordable is to increase our Grand List by building more housing.
The board is meeting Monday at 4pm to hear final comments on the budget and hopefully vote on what you will vote on Town Meeting Day. You can find a draft of the budget here:
https://townofwoodstock.org/about/fy26-budget/
Asks for YOU:
We are potentially voting on the following items at the meeting on Monday, so please let me know if you have thoughts/opinions on the following:
Whether or not we should include an article to move voting permanently to Australian Ballot? This comes with the knowledge that vote will still have to be in person this year so if you care about changing it, you will have to show up on Saturday, March 1st to vote. As a reminder, we already vote on elected officials, school district matters, bond articles, and petitioned articles by Australian ballot on Tuesday.
Susan has been working closely with the Vermont Land Trust to secure some grant funding through a conservation easement for the property. The question in front of us is how much do we want to place in a conservation? Do we want to hold any back? The conflict here is between receiving the money now and restricting the land in perpetuity, or receiving less money if we decide to exempt some land from conservation with the idea that we could leverage it in the future.
Double-dipping
This will not be the first or last time you hear me talk about special articles on our ballot. Non-profit organizations use special articles to fundraise on Town Meeting Day. These articles are included because they have collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot. Last year, these articles increased our tax rate by an additional 2-3%. The town budget alone currently calls for a roughly 10% increase from last year’s tax rate. PLEASE BE MINDFUL WHEN VOTING FOR THESE MEASURES - especially from organizations that already receive funding from our operating budget (i.e. Pentangle Arts, Norman Williams Public Library) and have other channels to fundraise from (such as private donations and endowments). I am not saying that these organizations do not deserve funding, I am simply trying to discourage this medium as a means of significant fundraising at the taxpayer’s expense (prepares for tomatoes to be thrown).
Zoning
If you’re going to watch a meeting this week, you should watch this week’s Planning Commission meeting where our shared energy coordinator from TRORC, Harry Falconer, outlines why our zoning bylaws need to be reviewed. If you recall, this is one of the goals agreed on by both boards in service of our priority to increase housing and development, specifically in the Village.
Reading/watching:
The new disease strikes the Otter Creek Valley, Vermont Medicine Journal (historical)
With major changes to Act 250, a new board takes the reins, VTDigger
Property Brothers on why the housing crisis is still raging, Yahoo Finance
Legislative Session has begun! You can keep track of bills here.
here comes the rain again
Make a plan to vote
We did it. We made it to the last vote of 2024. On Tuesday, December 10th, we are bringing you Part 2 of the the Water Infrastructure votes. As a reminder, this vote is by Australian ballot and you can vote at Town Hall between 7am - 7pm.
If you still have questions about the bonds, let me know. Happy to help you calculate what you will pay, or answer any question that comes up, though you will find a lot of FAQs on the town website.
FY26 Budget
The joint boards are deep into budget season, having met twice this week to hear from department heads about what they are requesting for the next fiscal year. The meetings were recorded and I definitely suggest watching (always 1.5x) if you want to hear from the horse’s mouth.
Some highlights:
Public Works Director Chris Barr emphasized that we are still in the midst of recovering from neglecting infrastructure projects. And the department remains understaffed. We will be acquiring some equipment as apart of the water company purchase and there’s a possibility some of it is redundant and we can sell.
Dispatch - Beth Therrien commented that it’s been hard to hire and retain employees since “they can get paid more bagging groceries”. In order to avoid overtime, the dispatchers swap days frequently.
Fire Department & Emergency Services - Unpaid ambulance bills are increasing each year. For those that don’t know, these are “soft bills” meaning that our practice is to send 3 reminder notices and not to send to collections. Our staff works with individuals to establish payment plans, but those are often abandoned, according to Chief Green. He has requested $98,000 to write off those unpaid bills in FY26.
Clerk - Our clerk’s office has administered 7 elections this year, I think it’s a record. Our Clerk Charlie is asking for two new computers, one for himself and one for the assistant clerks to share. They are using computers purchased new in 2015 and 2009, respectively.
Finance - Director Robert Densmore has successfully weaned us of NEMRC for payroll. This is a big move almost a year in the making. NEMRC makes the software most VT municipalities use for maintaining grand lists, AP/AR systems, and some other functions. They have a near-monopoly because 1. it’s cheap and 2. it’s used by the state. A combo that can only guarantee good outcomes, obviously.
Listers - Right now we have three lister positions. They are elected and work part-time - their only requirement is that they live in Woodstock. If you recall, Woodstock voted down replacing listers with a paid assessor on Town Meeting 2023. I personally think we could get more bang for our buck by replacing the lister positions with one full-time paid assessor (likely someone already in that office), but we’ll see if folks want to tackle that this Town Meeting.
Planning & Zoning - Consultant Mike Tuller has been filling in, with assistance from Bryan from Two Rivers, while we hire for two vacancies. In his short tenure here, Mike has said our office is the busiest one he has ever worked in. This staff is also experiencing a sharp increase in harassment and abuse from residents. Because of this, Eric suggested they consider moving to an appointment-only format.
Village Police - This week I learned our police cruisers have never had snow tires. Sgt. O’Keeffe has asked for an increase to provide 3 or all 4 of the cruisers with studded tires/snow tires. One of our cruisers spun out recently responding to a call on a dirt road. Fun. We also talked about the system the department uses to log interactions - citations, 911 calls, etc. I’d like to see this become readable, public-facing info, like in Lebanon - we’ll see if that’s in the cards.
Let me know if you notice a theme :)
There are few places we can cut and be more strategic, but I guarantee they aren’t popular solutions. I’ll write more about that next time.
let’s do the math
Ok, coming to you live from my couch after burning a batch of box brownies. But there’s much to catch up on, so here we go:
Bond Allocation
After many meetings, the board voted on and approved an allocation for the upcoming bond votes last Thursday morning. It is as follows:
Vondell being paid for by all taxpayers (this isn’t new) - this comes out to $12.71 per $100k of assessed value per year.
Infrastructure projects (Option 1B, new well + pump, Elm Street bridge suspension) being split so that all taxpayers are paying $11.75 per $100k of assessed value per year, users paying that cost plus $198.58 per 5000 cubic feet of usage.
It’s probably just easier to see it in graph form:
If you have questions about how to find your water usage, the easiest thing to do is have your water bills handy. But if not, I can help you figure it out. Hit me up!
This bond allocation is essentially the inverse of what was initially proposed, so this is a change. The majority of the debt service is being paid by users, minority payment being carried by all taxpayers and offset by local options tax revenue.
Some notes:
All taxpayers include users. Users will be paying all of the costs above should the bonds pass, non-users will be paying $12.71 and $11.75 per $100k of assessed value, respectively.
These costs assume no grants or donations will be offsetting the costs of either article. We already know the water infrastructure projects meet requirements for certain Federal, State, and regional grants. The town is also eligible for grants relating to conservation and recreation for the Vondell should we want to pursue them.
The bond payments will decrease each year. So the first year is the highest payment.
A new rate card is coming. User rates are going to increase. Not just for the debt service, but for saving for future capital projects, and running a successful water utility. The Finance Committee is working on updated rates for water and for sewer.
We’re going on a bear hunt…
Jk - we’re going on a brisk walk. I’ll be leading a jaunt at the Vondell this Sunday 12/1 at 10:30am for all interested parties. Dress warm and feel free to bring your kids. It’s about a mile each way. Parking is limited so let me know if you’re planning to come.
More coffee dates and happy hours next week - check the listserv and the town website:
https://townofwoodstock.org/about/acquisition-of-the-woodstock-water-system/
13 days before I can retire my sweatshirt :)
Reading/Watching
Judge upholds Burlington's restrictions on short-term rentals, Vermont Public
Connected, Well Told Films (a very short and sweet doc about Vermont’s Rural Broadband efforts) You will recognize some faces :)
Happy Thanksgiving!
>insert something peppy here<
I think everyone in Woodstock is suffering the same virus. Kids have runny noses, adults have coughs, and daylight saving time is kicking everyone’s butt. Oh, and it’s budget season. AND there’s a full moon. Lovely. Perfect.
Ok, let’s get into it.
This past week, the joint boards met to have our Town Manager’s annual review and kick off the budget process.
Municipal Manager Annual Review
For those that don’t know, we have a municipal manager named Eric Duffy. He is effectively the administrative executive of our government. He reports to both governing boards and manages the department heads as well as his own staff. Eric oversees the budgets and handles the daily operations of Town Hall. Because our Clerk, Treasurer, and Listers are elected officials, they have a unique quasi-management/quasi-partnership relationship with him. This is not an easy job, nor is it a particularly fun one. We are lucky to have someone who both enjoys this job and is very good at it.
Eric’s review consisted of the board chairs compiling specific feedback from our department heads and Eric’s administrative staff. Eric also prepared a memo that serves as a self-evaluation of the past year, which included the following highlights: finishing the arduous FEMA reimbursement process for the summer 2023 floods, passing a new personnel policy that increased benefits for staff, facilitating the objectives and goals discussion between both boards, implementing an annual employee survey, starting monthly staff events, and the successful acquisition of the Woodstock Aqueduct Company.
This comes with a huge but (“poopy poopy butt butt” I say reflexively, because I am a mother to toddlers) - the demands on Eric’s and his staff’s time are unsustainable. He has asked the boards to help manage the expectations of the community so that work on the things we have prioritized can move forward.
FY26 Budget
Eric and our Finance Director, Robert, kicked off budget prep at our joint meeting with a budget narrative. This is meant to set the stage for our work over the next month a half. Through the budget process, the department heads will come to both boards with a narrative and specific requests, Eric will do the same, and compile a “recommended” budget for the boards to consider. Then we get to work. We will use the objectives and goals we set to prioritize what we fund.
The thing I want to highlight (and pull the thread through from Eric’s review) is there is an ever-present conflict between the services that are expected in Woodstock and the limitations of our budget and current staff. We are attempting to address some of the need through process and technology, but we are still hamstrung from historical underinvestment.
You should watch the video if you have time (which I recommend always at 1.5x) of the joint meeting. There’s lots of good news/bad news, including (good) that our new local options tax generated ~$82,000 in the first quarter (7/1-9/30) and (bad) health insurance costs have gone up.
Upcoming Dec.10th Vote
We have an vote on two separate articles:
to bond the purchase of the property known as the Vondell for $1.6M
to bond the the replacement of the water main from the storage tank to address hydrant deficiencies (known as Option 1B), the suspension of the water main under the Elm Street Bridge, and a new well and pump replacement on Route 12.
This vote will be by Australian ballot as statutorily required by Vermont since it deals with the issuance of bonds.
The Selectboard is meeting on Tuesday evening (11/19) with a full agenda to include finalize bond allocation given input we have received from the community.
Other reminders
Overnight street parking ban in the Village went into effect yesterday (11/15)
Short-term rentals within the Village need to register with the office of Planning and Zoning for the upcoming calendar year. STRs that advertise without a permit will be liable for fines beginning Jan 1, 2025.
Reading // Greensboro Rabbit Hole
How a Vermont Cheesemaker Helps Local Farms Thrive, Civic Eats (thank you Liz for sharing)
Some Residents of Greensboro Are Fighting an Affordable Housing Proposal, Seven Days
don’t dream it’s over
A note of gratitude
Last week, in the largest floor vote in Woodstock’s recent history, voters approved the acquisition of the Woodstock Aqueduct Company.
This would not have been possible without the work of many people - including but not limited to our Water Working Group, Charlie Kimbell, our Municipal Manager Eric Duff, Chief of Staff Stephanie Appelfeller, Assistant to the Boards Kitty Mears, Finance Director Robert Densmore, Public Works Director Chris Barr, the many business that hosted our gatherings over the last month, and our community for showing up, asking questions, bringing thoughtful concerns, and most importantly, voting.
Before I get to what is next, let’s catch up on non-water business:
Objectives and goals
Two weeks ago, the Selectboard and Village Trustees finalized objectives and goals, which if you recall was prompted by Eric’s presentation on the State of Woodstock in June. In order to have our community move and work in the same direction, make efficient use of staff time, and give the boards a framework for decision-making, we established long term objectives with shorter-term measurable goals.
Objectives:
Housing/Development
Effective and efficient government:
Affordability
Climate Resiliency
These objectives are not mutually exclusive of each other, there is and should be overlap for many of the goals. For example, the purchase of the Woodstock Aqueduct Company has implications for housing, affordability, and climate resiliency.
The goals we decided on are for the remainder of the FY25 year and will help guide the budget process we are kicking off next week.
This is the first time this has been done in Woodstock’s history, for either executive board. We still have a lot of work to do on them, including specific directives for our advisory boards, which I hope to finalize in the coming weeks. One of the biggest struggles of our staff and our boards is the current demand for services and executive action, and the finite amount of time and financial resources we have to give to them.
Since I know folks will ask, the Selectboard requested that the EDC to halt any new grant funding requests until we finalize our objectives and priorities. We have sparred on a few of the last grant proposals and the board wants to make sure the EDC, as with all other boards, is working in-step with the entire town and reflecting the community’s wishes.
Retail cannabis
At last week’s meeting, the Selectboard approved a retail cannabis application at the location of the former Mountain Creamery. The approval was conditional on the outcome of a competitor’s appeal to the Environmental Court of the Town Development Review Board’s decision to approve the change of use from commercial to retail. The board has received some public comment on this, so I’ll address some concerns here:
The notice for the change of use from commercial to retail by the Town Development Review Board was properly warned.
As of October 25th, the State Cannabis Control Board has an active moratorium for any new retail cannabis permits so until that is lifted, we will not see any more permits issued for Woodstock.
I mourn the loss of the diner at Mountain Creamery, but that loss would be compounded if we were to suffer a vacant building. And if we care about helping businesses like the Creamery succeed, we need to create more housing.
Municipal Manager annual review + budget kickoff
The joint boards are looking at meeting mid-week to conduct Eric Duffy’s annual review and kickoff our budget process. If you have any feedback you would like included in the review, please let me know.
…And we’re back to water
The next vote will be a vote by Australian Ballot on Tuesday, December 10th to bond for purchase the Vondell Reservoir and bond for the following capital improvements: the water main replacement from Cox District Road (known as Option 1B), suspension of the water main under the Elm Street Bridge, and the new well replacement. You can read descriptions for each project here.
The board agreed to layout the ballot with two articles: 1. for the purchase of the Vondell and 2. for the financing of the other 3 infrastructure projects. We are signing the warning on Friday and will continue to meet the public out in the wild throughout the week. You can find the schedule here and also posted to the listserv.
We have a tentative agreement on the allocation of the bonds, but if you have feedback please seek us out. The Board has recruited the Finance Committee to work on a rate card for the water utility and will be discussing that more in depth at our Nov 19th meeting.
Upcoming
Susan Ford and I will be at the Vondell Reservoir this Saturday, November 9th at 2pm for anyone interested in touring and learning about the property. Please RSVP to her at susanford412@gmail.com if you want to come so we can arrange for carpooling or group transportation as parking is limited.
If you prefer to stay in your jammies and learn, Charlie Kimbell and Woodstock Community Television produced a video that explores the water-related aspects of the property:
are we there yet?
Tomorrow (or today depending on when you are reading this), Woodstock voters will gather to decide on whether or not to acquire the private water utility in our town.
More questions/comments I have gotten since last week:
Why aren’t we creating a water district?
A water district is another layer of government where the utility is governed by users only. I have seen many declarations that a water district should be created because Woodstock has a sewer district. We do not. All voters vote on the sewer rates and the sewer budget at Town Meeting Day.
At a time when our executive boards have agreed that we need to increase efficiency in our government so that it can be more effective, creating another layer of government would be a big step in the wrong direction.
We need more time!
For what? I’m earnestly asking.
Some have suggested that no one should be asked to vote for this acquisition until they’ve laid eyes on every pipe in the system. Some have suggested that no one should be asked to vote for this acquisition until their uncle’s dog walker’s sister’s cousin who is a (insert finance-adjacent job here) has gone over the list of assets and their valuation.
This acquisition is supported by the State of Vermont, the Water Working Group (an advisory group that was comprised of residents and elected officials), the Woodstock Planning Commission, Sustainable Woodstock, and the Village Trustees. The Selectboard hired a firm to audit the financial records of the Aqueduct back in the Spring, we engaged an engineering firm to produce a comprehensive report on what capital projects the system requires to come into compliance.
The board’s position is that there is value in owning this utility as soon as possible; that continuing to have the utility under it’s current ownership is not in the best interest of our town.
But what about a rate card?
The Selectboard understands the importance of developing a rate card that differentiates between types of users (and one that incentivizes conservation). We’ve had a lot of smart, qualified folks lay the foundation for that work. But, there’s an order of operations here: we need to own the water company, bond for the improvements, then make a rate card that we can educate the public on.
I still have questions about the upcoming bond vote.
Great, we have another month of meetings and information sessions. We’ll be posting them on the town website and the listserv. Please, please, come.
What else?
Honestly, there’s a lot going on outside water, too. FY26 budget development is forthcoming. Once I get enough sleep and I will catch you up on it.
(Unfortunately relatable) reading:
I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is, The Atlantic
‘ “So much of the conversation around misinformation suggests that its primary job is to persuade. But as Michael Caulfield, an information researcher at the University of Washington, has argued, “The primary use of ‘misinformation’ is not to change the beliefs of other people at all. Instead, the vast majority of misinformation is offered as a service for people to maintain their beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” ‘