The words “local control” may seem more like the state motto than the official “Freedom and Unity,” but town and city leaders are increasingly frustrated that the Vermont Constitution gives the Legislature the final say in approving and amending their municipal charters.
“A greater degree of self-governance would allow us to identify and address issues locally without having to ask the state for permission over and over again,” Brattleboro Town Manager Peter Elwell told his selectboard at a recent meeting.
That’s why the southern Vermont community is one of a growing number lobbying the Legislature for the ability to more easily modify their charters, which form the governing framework for 60 cities and towns and 24 incorporated villages where more than half of the state’s population lives.
“Time and again, when we identify needs and start generating thought about how to go about creating positive change,” Elwell said, “we find that we bump into barriers where we’re not authorized to take the actions we think are appropriate.”
Consider neighboring Bennington, where voters approved a charter change to allow removal of long-absent Selectboard members by a 3-to-1 ratio. The Legislature reviewed the idea — and rejected it.
“I might get in trouble for saying it,” Brattleboro Selectboard Chairman Tim Wessel said upon learning that, “but the relationship of the state to its municipalities is pretty paternalistic.”
Windham County state Sen. Jeanette White introduced a bill last year to form a commission to study ways to expand municipal self-governance. The pilot program would be modeled after one in West Virginia, where its Legislature, finding the effort gave communities “greater flexibility to operate in a more cost-effective, efficient and timely manner,” went on to expand it statewide.
The Vermont Senate approved the plan 21-8 before the Covid-19 pandemic upended the last legislative session. White is resubmitting the idea this session, although fellow advocates aren’t finding as much support for self-governance in the House.
“The House Government Operations Committee historically has been more interested in the details of what towns are doing,” says Karen Horn, director of public policy and advocacy for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, a municipal support organization. “We’d like to at least have the conversation.”
To advance the cause, several communities are asking the Legislature to approve charter changes that enable them to adopt provisions already authorized by the state for other communities.
“For us to be able to draw upon something because we think it would be good for our town would be an incremental measure of additional self-governance,” Elwell said. “The hope is that, by having a cross section of municipalities adopt similar language, there’s a better chance the Legislature might take this up.”
Williston and Winooski voted for such charter amendments last year and are awaiting state review. Brattleboro will cast ballots on its own change March 2.
“One of the things that has caused quite a lot of consternation is the fact there are provisions that have been approved for some municipalities and rejected for others,” Elwell said. “There’s a fair amount of inconsistency that’s very frustrating. We’re hoping this generation of legislators will view this differently, be less controlling and instead empower communities.”
White’s bill easily passed the Senate last year, although it faced opposition she sums up as “we really can’t trust local government to do the right thing.”
“There were some specific concerns, like what if every town sets up their own banking rules or gun laws?” says White, who chairs the Senate Government Operations Committee. “If you read the bill, there are a number of areas where they don’t have freedom to act.”
The Vermont League of Cities and Towns, which has received supportive resolutions from northernmost Enosburg Falls to southernmost Vernon, says increased self-governance can help with such initiatives as local option taxes, broadband service extension, climate change and clean environment efforts, and law enforcement policy-making and oversight.
“It’s a really wonky issue and people who aren’t geeks about it will glaze over pretty quickly,” Horn says. “But Covid has shown how you need local government to do a wide range of things.”
Then again, municipalities can’t even mail ballots to all registered voters without state approval, she adds.
“Legislatures understand the frustration of the federal government telling them what to do,” Horn says. “Then they turn around and do the same to the locals.”
