Swanton Village voters on Tuesday denied a $14.8 million bond for a new public safety facility, voting 444-130 to defeat the plan.
The proposal included a 22,000-square-foot building that would provide a new home for the village’s fire and police departments, which currently operate out of what local officials say are inadequate buildings. It was among the most expensive public safety proposals in Vermont this Town Meeting Day.
The bond potentially would have added up to $450,000 per year for 30 years to the village’s operating expenses, according to village officials. However, some of the cost to village property taxpayers would have been offset by new or expanded contracts for policing with the town of Swanton and other neighboring towns, they said.
One of these contracts is with Swanton Town. Although not able to vote on the facility, the town voted 431-419 in favor of appropriating almost half a million dollars to provide police protection to the town, according to Cathy Fournier, the town’s clerk.
Prior to the vote, Selectboard Chair Earl Fournier said the town’s citizens were nervous about the new facility, especially in light of the recent tumult regarding rising school budgets.
Even though the land for the new facility had already been bought in the winter of 2023, the defeat means the village will need to look at other measures to “alleviate our space needs,” according to Bill Sheets, the village’s manager.
The village’s police chief, Matthew Sullivan, previously emphasized that the current facility is not meeting the needs of the village and changes will have to be made.
Due to the lack of space, the capacity of the Swanton Village police department, consisting of eight full-time and six part-time police officers, suffers from a maxed-out storage room for evidence and no holding cells, Sullivan said.
Correction: An earlier version mischaracterized what Swanton Town voted on during Town Meeting Day.
