Morristown voters roundly reject budget increase

Meanwhile, the second-longest serving board member announced his abrupt departure this week, citing family reasons but also an “extremely negative and volatile” political environment and his own displeasure with the very budget he had helped craft.

Travis Sabataso defeated incumbent Brian Kellogg 1,118-644 for a two-year selectboard term. Sabataso, who is the human resources director for the town of Essex, campaigned on a vow to vote against the budget and an expressed eagerness to help develop a “far more fiscally responsible” one.

Kellogg, for his part, had acknowledged that the budget, particularly cost-of-living raises for all town employees, “hit us hard,” but supported it, nonetheless.

The other selectboard race was closer, with Laura Streets defeating Richard Craig 868-812. Streets replaces board member Jess Graham, who decided not to run for re-election.

Arguably the biggest change on the board, though, comes with the announcement by chairman Bob Beeman that he was stepping down this week with one year left in his term.

As of press deadline, the next steps were unclear. There will be a special town meeting next month to act on a petition calling for all future budget votes to be cast by Australian ballot rather than from the floor, but it is uncertain whether town officials can muster a new budget in time for that meeting.

Already, one other item, a vote on whether to approve up to $200,000 for new sidewalks on Jersey Heights, has been added to that future meeting ballot. It was originally on Tuesday’s ballot, but town officials mistakenly called the road Jersey Way and later decreed that no votes cast for or against it would count.

Despite it not counting, voters may have already made up their minds about spending money on sidewalk, defeating the erroneous article 1,345-431.

Elsewhere on the big, 37-article ballot, voting was a mixed bag.

Residents voted 1,216-629 to approve spending up to $335,000 for a new ambulance and power stretcher for the emergency medical services department.

They agreed to raise taxes to support the fire department and highway department capital equipment funds but voted against doing the same for the Noyes House Museum and the Morristown Conservation Commission.

They voted to establish one reserve fund to cover unexpected revenue shortfalls and another for bridge and highway infrastructure work but voted against establishing a capital reserve fund for municipal buildings.

The town this year opted to separate the roughly $86,000 in appropriation requests for outside organizations into individual articles as a preventative to voter backlash against the budget, and most of the 23 articles were approved.

The three exceptions were $10,000 for River Arts, $4,000 for the Lamoille Economic Development Corporation, and $2,500 for the Lamoille County Civic Association, which were all defeated.

In non-contested elections, voters chose Sara Haskins to continue as town clerk, treasurer and trustee of public funds, Shap Smith as moderator and Brian Yeaton as lister. All three are incumbents.

Voter also selected two new library trustees, Johna Cote and Ruth Ann Rogers.

The selectboard meets tonight (Thursday) to reorganize itself, as is typical following every Town Meeting Day. What will not be typical is dealing with the aftermath of a budgetary bloodbath.