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A preview of Vermont Town Meeting Day on Tuesday

Vermont Town Meeting Day graphic
Pat Bradley/WAMC

Vermont Town Meeting Day is Tuesday. Vermonters traditionally meet in town halls to hash out local budgets, local candidates and issues. But this year, not so much. Many communities are still opting to use the Australian ballot rather than hold in-person meetings as the COVID-19 pandemic lingers.

For the first time the Vermont League of Cities and Towns has published a “Town Meeting Day Preview.” The organization contacted municipal officials to determine what will be happening in communities across the state. The first sentence in the report: “Town Meeting Day is changing.”

League Public Policy and Advocacy Director Karen Horn says the biggest change is the number of towns opting not to hold floor meetings.

“It was also the biggest change last year. There was legislation passed both last year and at the beginning of this year that allows for towns to move to Australian ballot during the COVID crisis. But it does not allow you to move permanently to Australian ballot.”

According to the League, while 75 percent of the meetings will use the Australian ballot, 63 towns will hold in person floor meetings. Four towns will have questions on local option taxes and there are 41 retail cannabis questions across the state. Horn says that is a fairly new issue for towns.

“The law says that a town has to vote to opt in to allowing retail cannabis. So that’s why you’re starting to see those questions on town ballots. We’ve always had a few towns that address energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate change kinds of issues. I think this year because there is a Climate Action Plan towns are paying a lot more attention to that.”

Two cities, Winooski and Montpelier, will allow non-citizen voting on Town Meeting Day for the first time. But initial reports indicate very few non-citizen residents have registered to vote. Middlebury College Professor of Political Science Bert Johnson expects few participants.

“It’s been an issue where there’s been a lot of controversy but maybe very little practical effect.”

In Vermont’s largest city, eight of 12 Burlington city council seats are up for election. Three councilors chose not to run for re-election, three incumbents are being challenged and two incumbents are unchallenged.

Voters in Burlington also face a number of ballot questions. During a virtual review of the measures Burlington school district Executive Director of Finance Operations Nathan Lavery said the school budget is increasing.

“The budget increase is primarily driven by rising costs for wages, benefits and so forth. We’ve also included in our budget funds to pay for the rental costs associated with our downtown BHS (Burlington High School) facility and our other rented facilities that are necessary in light of the fact that we can’t occupy the Institute Road campus at this time. One thing to know that is not part of the total budget estimate and that gets accounted for separately are our federal recovery funds. A big part of that spending is going to support the new high school and technical center. That is not reflected in here.”

Department heads reviewed each of the remaining questions on Burlington’s ballot.

Officials stress that while Town Meeting Day is Tuesday, voting is already occurring. Max Tracy is the outgoing president of the Burlington City Council.

“Polls will be open on Town Meeting Day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Vermont is a same day registration state. And if you have already received a mail-in ballot at this point we are recommending that folks do not send their ballots back via the mail but rather take them in and either place them in drop boxes or go into your polling place on Town Meeting Day.”