By Curt Peterson
Standard Correspondent
Killington
— At 7:45 p.m. on Town Meeting Day, just 45 minutes after the polls
in Town Hall closed, Treasurer Lucrecia Wonsor announced that Killington
had filed its final voting returns for the 2016 town and presidential
primary elections. Nine people, including all three selectmen and the
treasurer, were involved in double-checking the voter list, sorting and
counting ballots, culling out ones that evoked questions, and checking
the computerized tallies. Selectman Chris Bianchi looked up from his
ballot-sorting worktable and said, “This is just like Groundhog Day —
you wake up and realize you’ve got two more years on the select board.”
Wonsor announced that a
record number of voters had turned out for the election. “Four hundred
eighty,” she said. “That’s a record for us.”
Selectman Ken Lee estimated
that 50 percent of eligible voters had participated. Wonsor said only
263 had voted in the presidential primary. Bernie Sanders had carried
the town among the Democrats.
Voters elected N. B. Neisner
as Town Moderator and Town Agent, Lucretia Wonsor as Treasurer, Walter
Findeisen as a Lister, Red Glaze as Grand Juror, Nancy Koch as Public
Funds Trustee, Paul Holmes as a Cemetery Commissioner, and Sally Koch
and Beth Weinberg-Sarandria as Library Trustees. The only contested
position was that of Patty McGrath’s select board seat, sought by Jim Haff. McGrath held on to her post 264 votes to 208.
Article 2 in the warnings
proposed setting four dates during the year for real estate tax payments
instead of two, the stated purpose being to make the burden easier for
taxpayers to manage. At the Feb. 29 informational meeting McGrath had
answered a resident’s concern about this change requiring the town to
incur interest costs by borrowing more in tax-anticipation loans.
“In the long run,” she said, “this will actually reduce the pressure to borrow against short-term revenue expectations.”
The voters overwhelmingly approved the four-payment proposal 373 votes to 63.
The town budget of
$4,155,339, described in Article 3, was approved 292 votes to 139, which
might have surprised attendees of the informational meeting the
previous evening. Resident had questioned applying “estimated surpluses”
to the subsequent year’s revenue figures, and how the meals and rooms
tax revenue might fall short of projections due to a “bad snow
year.” Several questions were raised regarding the finances of Green
Mountain National Golf Club, which belongs to the town. In addition, Amy
Morrison’s status as a shared employee of the town’s and Killington Pico Area Association came under discussion again, residents wanting to know if the arrangement wasn’t favoring Killington Resort at the expense of the taxpayers, which McGrath assured was not the case.
The 2015-2016 budget total
was $6,282,554, and covered 18 months instead of 12 to bring the
year-end to June 30. The pro rata monthly expenses were $349,031. During
a twelve-month year the total would be $4,188,369, or two-thirds of the
18-month figure. The proposed town budget for 2016-2017, up for
approval at Town Meeting on March 1, is $4,155,339, less than that for a
like period in the previous budget.
The municipal tax rate for
20152016 was also based on an eighteenmonth budget at 46 cents per $100
of assessed property value. Twothirds would have been 31 cents. The
estimated town rate for 20162017 is 33 cents, or an increase of 2 cents.
For a home assessed at $200,000 this will mean a tax increase of about
$49 per year.
When the Shelburne Town
Library was constructed in 1999, some design errors were made,
construction errors, and bad choices of roofing materials. As a result,
the library suffers roof leaks, serious heat loss and difficulty
maintaining a comfortable interior
temperature. Article 4 asked voters to approve borrowing $200,000 to
reconstruct and properly insulate the library roof.
Library Trustee Diane
Rosenbloom gave a detailed presentation at the informational meeting in
which she said the defective shingles used on the roof were subject of a
class action suit, but the attorneys wanted claimants to prepay fees in
order to participate, which the trustees had been advised was not a
good deal. And, she added, trying to recover damages from the original
contractors would be problematic because of the time lapse and because
some of them have gone out of business.
“This reconstruction is in the Capital Plan,” Rosenbloom said.
McGrath said investment in the new roof would not raise taxes. On Election Day the new roof proposal passed 321 votes to 115.
Voters also approved Article
5, which authorized “expenditure of $400 to fund the non-profit Child
First Advocacy Center, which supports the discovery, intervention,
treatment and prevention of child abuse.” The vote count was 264 to 203.
Killington
School District’s proposed budget also passed. The total budgeted
expenditures are $1,682,707, providing $15,577 per equalized pupil, 9.5
percent less than last year.
Selectman and candidate for re-election Patty McGrath answers a question at a town information meeting. Curt Peterson Photo
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