LONDONDERRY — Five years after debating a rise in heroin dealing and related crime on Town Meeting Day, this rural community held another type of drug discussion Tuesday: How to make money from marijuana.
“We, the residents of Londonderry, Vermont, want the opportunity to develop legal cannabis related businesses and to form a healthy, safe locally based marketplace,” read an advisory article approved Tuesday at a state microcosm of a local town meeting that addressed a host of hot button issues.
This Windham County outpost of 1,691 people joined Bennington, St. Albans City and Waitsfield in considering a 1% local option tax on sales, alcohol, rooms and meals that’s already raising revenue for 21 other Vermont municipalities.
Londonderry could reap more than $100,000 annually from such a tax after the state takes its one-third administrative fee, leaders calculated.
“The whole notion is to reduce local real estate taxes the best we can,” Town Administrator Shane O’Keefe said.
But many in the crowd that filled the 1860 historic town hall noted the state was losing population and trying to attract more people.
“You don’t get people into town by adding taxes,” one man said. “And I don’t see how this is going to give that big a break to property owners.”
After a debate that ranged from an impassioned “this is a medieval flat tax” to an impassive “I don’t see this as a big deal,” residents rejected the proposal 75-44.
Londonderry was also one of several communities in the state to discuss efforts to exterminate the destructive forest insect the emerald ash borer. Residents unanimously approved a $3,000 Infestation Reserve Fund to protect some trees and remove others, mirroring a larger $10,000 request in Grand Isle.
For its part, Londonderry’s cannabis discussion echoed a similar conversation in Thetford, which voted 95-56 in its town meeting Saturday to overturn a local ordinance banning the commercial sale and cultivation of marijuana.
The towns are getting a jump on a statewide issue. Recreational marijuana sales remain illegal in Vermont, but a bill passed in the House last week could create a legal market as soon as 2022 — though it faces likely opposition from Gov. Phil Scott.
The measure would leave it up to municipalities to decide whether to allow dispensaries. Londonderry and Thetford’s votes are largely symbolic; if the state legalizes sales, the towns likely would have to pass more specific articles before any marijuana businesses could open there.
Some Londonderry residents voiced concerns ranging from marijuana’s potential impact on youth brain development to people driving under the influence. Others countered that studies have shown that such activities as football or talking and texting behind the wheel are more dangerous.
“This is a non-binding resolution,” Town Clerk Kelly Pajala capped the conversation on an article approved by an almost 2-to-1 margin. “It does not mean Londonderry is going to be a haven for cannabis-related business. There’s simply value in knowing what the community thinks.”
Drugs hit Londonderry particularly hard five years ago when the remote town without a police force was fighting not only dealing (in one incident, two residents were caught with 480 bags of heroin and 65 grams of crack and powder cocaine) but also numerous related burglaries and break-ins of homes and businesses, schools, the post and town offices, and transfer station.
“The people of Londonderry have experienced a significant, steady and unprecedented increase in crime over the past several years that shows no sign of relenting,” a citizens’ committee reported at the time.
In 2016, a standing-room-only town meeting crowd approved a patrol contract with Vermont State Police totaling $86,000. This year, local leaders say the problem has decreased enough to drop the figure to $5,000.
That’s welcome news in a community without any other law enforcement. Longtime First Constable Roger Sheehan, noting his office has little authority to do much more than collar problematic dogs, declined to run for re-election this year.
“We don’t do much,” Sheehan told the town, “so it’s time for somebody else to step in.”
But no one volunteered for either that position or the one for second constable — even as meeting moderator Doug Friant attempted to play up the positives.
“Second constable,” he said, “doesn’t sound quite as hard as first.”
