Vermont Standard
3/7/19
By Curt Peterson
Standard Correspndent
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Curt Peterson Photo
KILLINGTON — Killington voters will decide all eight articles by Australian ballot on Tuesday, March 5, but they gathered Monday evening before in the elementary school gym to hear and discuss the proposed choices.
Select Board Chair Steve Finneran stood in as moderator for the absent Paul Buhler. He said he hoped turnout for voting on Tuesday would be much better than the 60 people attending the information session.
Selectwoman Patty McGrath, a Killington resident for 28 years, is running for re-election against resident Chuck Claffey, who moved to Killington in 2015, in the only election contest this year.
Both candidates are focused on improving fiscal sustainability, and
would emphasize rehabilitating town infrastructure.
The proposed general fund budget totals $4,676,767, which will increase the prop- erty tax rate by five cents,
according to Town Manager Chet Hagenbarth, who said the increase will add about $135 to taxes on a $250,000 home. The projected municipal tax rate is $.4665 per $100 assessed value.
The next three articles would authorize new town debt.
East Mountain Road and Dean Hill Road reconstruction will cost up to $1,000,000, Hagenbarth said. Any grants will reduce the amount borrowed. He said the roads are beyond patching or coating.
A new Public Safety Building for fire, emergency squad and police on townowned land will require authorizing the town to borrow up to $4,775,000, according to the town manager. Net debt service cost would not be significantly affected, he
said, as existing bond payments would cease.
The Killington Volunteer Fire Department has pledged to contribute all net proceeds from sale of the current facility towards construction of the new building.
The town needs to borrow $588,000 to resolve lingering Tropical Storm Irene issues, Hagenbarth said. After the storm Killington had requested funds to replace culverts with more expensive bridges as required by the state. Because the state regulations had not been officially approved at the
time of Killington’s application, FEMA would only pay the lesser cost of culverts. Believing they would be reimbursed later, the town built the bridges and applied for additional funds — the bridge requirement had been approved in the meantime.
“Not only did they turn down that request,” Select Board member Jim Haff said, “they decided the earlier reimbursement was an error. Now they want that money back.”
Killington has appealed.
“We should know the outcome in 90 days,” Haff said.
Killington has only $100,000 net cash reserves. Auditors have strongly advised three months’ expenses be reserved for planned and unanticipated expenses. Article 7 would approve creating a designated reserve fund “to cover revenue shortfalls and to pay nonrecurring and unanticipated general and highway fund expenses,” to be funded from surpluses in future years, which would increase the reserve account until it reaches recommended level — about $1 million, Hagenbarth said.
“If all the Articles are approved,” Hagenbarth said, “the tax rate will go up just two cents, but not until next [2021] year — but not this [2020] year.”
The Green Mountain National Golf Course reported a loss of $50,000 in the Town Report. Haff said a new management company running the operations is improving the GMNGC financial pic ture “a little at a time”, and that the 2018 loss was actually about $10,000.
Rutland, Chittenden and Killington State Representative Jim Harrison spoke about a proposal by Montpelier to allow legal, non-citizen legal residents to vote on local issues.
Harrison said the legislature has been making large donations for seven or eight years to catch up regarding $4.5 billion in underfunded state pension accounts.
Three issues dominated attention in the run-up to the election: the 2020 budget, the new Public Services Building, and the race for Patty McGrath’s Select
At left, Selectwoman Patty McGrath is running for re-election. On the right, Killington resident Vito Rasenas asks about the golf course. Curt Peterson Photos
The budget and the PSB each passed with 2 to 1 margins – over 300 voters participated on these two Articles and the Select Board contest.
Charles “Chuck” Claffey defeated two-term veteran selectwoman Patty Mc-Grath 202 to 110, also a 2 to 1 margin. The upset may have surprised anyone who attended the Killington Pico Area Association sponsored “Meet the Candidates” event February 25, or who relied on brief statements made by McGrath and Claffey at Monday evening’s information meeting – both candidates seemed to agree on what is important and how to accomplish town goals, and neither distinguished themselves from the other in any significant way on those
two occasions.
Selectman Jim Haff, asked his opinion, said only, “Chuck rocks.” Haff had lost to McGrath in 2016 when she ran for re-election. He then won for Chris Bianchi’s vacated seat.
An advocate for Claffey, Haff wrote a letter to the local Killington newspaper on February 24 endorsing Claffey’s candidacy. In the letter Haff cited historic events he thought demonstrated the difference between Claffey’s and Mc-Grath’s approaches.
"He's strong with finan cials and has some no-nonsense beliefs on the town’s role in the community,” Haff wrote. “This year I’m looking to enhance the makeup of the Select
Board, please vote for Chuck Claffey.
The Vermont Standard was unable to reach either candidate directly for a comment on the election outcome.
Voters approved every Article, including the proposed $4,676,767 2020 budget, $1,000,000 borrowing to reconstruct Dean Hill and East Mountain Roads, financing a
new Public Services Building for up to $4,775,000, borrowing $588,000 to complete Tropical Storm Irene damage, and creating a designated reserve account to be funded from future budget surpluses.
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