Vermont residents participated in a time-honored tradition on Tuesday: Town Meeting Day. North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley looks at some of the results.
The first Tuesday in March is the day local and school budgets are considered, local officials are elected and ballot questions are decided. Some communities still gather to hash out the pros and cons before voting, while others use Australian ballots – which is voting at a polling place or mailing a ballot back to local clerks.
A number of communities passed bonds for infrastructure improvements and, so far, most school budgets have passed.
In Burlington, eight of the city’s 12 council seats were before voters. Five incumbents were uncontested. In Ward 3, the Progressive incumbent did not run for re-election, but the uncontested race was won by a Progressive.
Contested races in wards 7 and 8 could have changed the balance between Progressives and Democrats. But the incumbents won and the 7 to 5 Democratic advantage remains.
Current council president and Ward 5 Democrat Ben Traverse says maintaining control is critical.
“With that majority we’ve been able to really push a number of issues that are incredibly important to the future of our community and I’m glad that we’ll retain that majority. You know, in the two contested races that we had here in Burlington, we anticipated that Evan (Litwin) would have the result that he realized and that Ward 8 would be a closer race and are glad that the council Democrats retain our majority.”
The race for Rutland mayor captured attention after the incumbent, Mike Doenges, announced he would resign in the middle of his term, but did so on Jan. 29 – after the filing deadline for candidates to get on the ballot. That triggered entirely write-in campaigns by nine candidates. Unofficial results show Alderman Tom Donahue won with 1,323 votes.
Last week Governor Phil Scott confirmed he had endorsed Donahue.
“I’ve known Tom for a couple of decades. I think he’s the right person at the right time for this position. It’s unfortunate that the current mayor has resigned and I think that Tom can step into this position, he’s an alderman. I think he has all the attributes needed.”
Donahue will serve the last year of a two-year term. After the polls closed, but before the results were in, he told Rutland’s community access television PEG-TV, that it was an opportune time to run.
“I really believe in the opportunity for economic development for the city right now and that with my background, and that’s a substantial background, that I was the right person at the right time. So, some things will change. One of the ways that I plan on doing that is to communicate with the public regularly so that people have an understanding of what’s going on and less speculation frankly.”
Middlebury College Professor of Political Science Bert Johnson found it to be a fairly ordinary Town Meeting Day statewide with some interesting local results.
“One of the things that I find quite fascinating is Brattleboro, which voted to scrap its unique representative town meeting format, but it’s unclear what Brattleboro voters want to do instead. The other one that I noticed was Royalton voted against AI data centers, which I suppose is a sign of the times. So, not a lot of huge surprises and not one big state story, just a lot of really interesting local stories.”
Winooski voters elected the state’s first Black and openly gay mayor. Thomas Renner had been serving as interim mayor following the resignation of Kristine Lott. He ran uncontested to serve the remaining year of a two-year term.
