Killington Elects Patty McGrath Over Jim Haff

Vermont Standard

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