Vermont’s 28 municipalities with 5,000 or more people will ask voters to approve nearly $60 million in capital projects this March Town Meeting season — a one-third drop from the $100 million wish lists they proposed in 2022 and 2023.
“A municipality faces many of the same pressures that are being seen throughout different sectors of the economy,” Williston Town Manager Erik Wells has written in a ballot preview.
But that hasn’t stopped Williston and a dozen other of the state’s biggest communities from supplementing their annual budgets with plans for everything from downtown housing in St. Albans to replacement of the main bridge connecting Burlington with neighboring Winooski.
Of the $59.6 million in proposals, the largest share — about one-third — would pay for public safety infrastructure and improvements.
In the biggest project on the ballot statewide, Swanton Village will consider a $14.8 million bond for a new police and fire station. The plan comes with complicated geography: Swanton as a whole has 6,837 people, with a central village population of 2,381 (those taxpayers are voting on the station) and a surrounding-rest-of-town population of 4,456 (which contracts with the village for coverage and won’t be deciding or directly responsible for the bond).
Hartford, for its part, will see a $1.3 million plan to expand its Quechee Village fire station.
Several other communities will weigh fire truck purchases, including Shelburne at $1 million (plus another $375,000 for an ambulance), Morristown at $500,000 and Waterbury at $380,000.
A handful of cities and towns are seeking to improve water systems:
— Northfield will ask for a $7.23 million bond for a new reservoir and transmission line.
— South Burlington will vote on the $5.75 million purchase of a 2.1 million-gallon water storage tank.
— Middlebury will consider $1.5 million in South Street sewer, stormwater and surface improvements (as well as a $1.2 million bond for reconstruction of Bakery Lane).
— And residents in the Champlain Water District will weigh a $3.2 million reallocation of unspent improvement money for more upgrades to the system that serves Colchester, the town of Essex and the city of Essex Junction, the village of Jericho, Milton, Shelburne, South Burlington, Williston and Winooski.
Housing will appear on the ballot in St. Albans City, which is proposing a $11.4 million bond to build some 90 workforce housing units in back of City Hall and the former Bellevue property in the downtown tax increment financing, or TIF, district. (Under the TIF program, the city can approve a bond and pay it off from resulting tax revenue.)
In other municipal matters:
— Winooski will vote on a $4.6 million bond for its share of a proposed Burlington-Winooski bridge project for Routes 2 and 7.
— Jericho will consider a new $4.15 million town maintenance facility.
— Stowe will weigh $1.3 million for such capital projects as heating/cooling and audio/video upgrades to the Akeley municipal building, recreation path reconstruction, an emergency management building generator and flashing speed signs for Moscow village.
— Williston will cast ballots on a $700,000 expansion of the Town Hall parking lot, as well as a $400,000 fire suppression system for its Old Brick Church, which was nearly destroyed by a 2007 lightning strike to its wooden cupola.
— And Bennington will ask for approval to convey its senior center building to developers aiming to relocate the facility into a larger renovation of the former Bennington High School.
Of the eight Vermont municipalities with mayors, five will see the office up for election this year.
The state’s biggest city of Burlington could elect its first woman as mayor, with Progressive Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and Democrat Joan Shannon running alongside independent candidates William Emmons and Christopher Haessly.
In the capital of Montpelier, Mayor Jack McCullough is facing a challenge from Carlton Langston Anderson and Dan Jones.
St. Albans City Mayor Tim Smith and Winooski Mayor Kristine Lott are running unopposed, while Barre City Mayor Jake Hemmerick won’t be up for reelection until his community votes on municipal posts May 14.
Several of the state’s most populous hubs are proposing changes to their local charters:
— Montpelier will consider protecting residential tenants from evictions without “just cause” under language similar to that adopted in Burlington, Essex and Winooski.
— Rutland City will vote on a citizens’ petition to mandate “no fluoride, or any chemical containing fluoride, shall be added” to the public water supply.
— Hartford will weigh adding a 1% local sales tax to its current 1% local rooms, meals and alcohol tax.
— Burlington will ask to raise the municipal electric department’s permitted amount of temporary loans from $5 million to $10 million dollars, as well as to increase the police and fire tax rate about 4% to 3 cents more.
— And South Burlington will decide whether to expand its school board from five to seven seats.
As for advisory articles, Essex Town will ask a nonbinding question on whether the annual report should list the names, position titles, salaries and benefits of all municipal employees.
Although most Vermont communities have set March 5 votes on local government matters separate from any school questions, several have different schedules.
Barre City and Barre Town will cast ballots for the state’s presidential primary on March 5 but have moved their municipal items to May 14 as they calculate how last year’s flooding will affect costs.
The city of Essex Junction will vote on presidential primary and Champlain Water District questions on March 5 but wait per custom and charter to decide local issues on April 9.
Brattleboro will choose municipal leaders on March 5 and decide spending at its Representative Town Meeting on March 23.
And Jericho and Stowe are set to hold floor meetings on March 5, when they’ll each vote on whether to consider all future budget articles and public questions by ballot.