Newbie naysayers wield power in budget redux

McDowell was speaking Thursday at a special meeting two days after Town Meeting Day that was ostensibly scheduled as a re-organization — typically a brisk affair when board roles are assigned, future meetings are scheduled and a newspaper of record is reiterated. This time, though, things were far from light-hearted, with a lot of heavy lifting predicted.

The work of crafting a new budget that voters find more palatable will be done by a group of board representatives so inexperienced that the longest tenured member — new board chair Judy Bickford — is starting her sixth year.

Voters last week seated two new selectboard members, one of whom, Travis Sabataso, replaces the elected body’s longest-tenured representative, Brian Kellogg, who had sat on the board for more than 20 years. At the same time, longtime board chair Bob Beeman officially bid farewell to the board after 15 years.

“You’re the last true Vermonter sitting there,” Bickford, on a remote feed, said to Beeman in the waning minutes of his last meeting as a selectboard member. “And the institutional memory goes with you.”

Next steps

Morristown’s municipal to-do list over the next month is long and there are so many next steps someone might need a Fitbit to track them all.

First, the budget that was shot down last week will be revisited by a board that now features folks opposed to the original figures.

Both Sabataso and Laura Streets ran on anti-budget platforms — at one point in February they and others stood at the village’s busiest intersection during the evening commute protesting the budget with picket signs.

Residents have been vocal, too, and continued their drumbeat Thursday.

Tony Cote proposed simply doing nothing and keeping the budget the same for another year, until Morristown’s town wide reappraisal is finished and taxpayers have a better sense of what their properties are worth.

“Instead of going back and voting, six, seven weeks from now, I think the budget should be thrown into austerity for another year,” Cote said.

Kathy Chafee echoed that sentiment.

“It’s very hard to vote on a budget this high when we don’t even know the values of our homes,” Chafee said.

No date has yet been set for a budget revote, which town clerk Sara Haskins said must be conducted by Australian ballot, since that’s how the original March 7 vote was conducted.

Even as the board and town staff work out the new figures, voters will be asked to attend a special in-person meeting next month where there will be nary a peep of the re-drafted figures but where the fate of future budget votes will be considered.

At that special April 18 meeting, voters will determine whether Morristown will forever conduct its Town Meeting Day business by Australian ballot. The meeting is the result of a petition submitted by residents in January calling for the budget to be voted on by ballot rather than by vocal ayes or nays from a portion of the populace that ebbs and flows but generally trends smaller year after year.

Thursday, the board agreed to add two additional articles, asking residents to approve voting on future elections as well as all “public questions” by Australian ballot.

Coming off that April 18 to-do list? Revisiting a $200,000 sidewalk question.

According to Town administrator Eric Dodge, even though the town was originally going to re-warn a town meeting article asking for voters to approve that sum to build a sidewalk on Jersey Heights — the article had the wrong road name and was rendered invalid after the ballots were printed — it was quite clear from the lopsided vote on that article that voters had no stomach for that sidewalk work this coming year.

They shot down the measure 1,345-431.

Dodge said he consulted with a lawyer who suggested the selectboard read the tea leaves and just let the issue rest for this year and, if the developers building on Jersey Heights can get by without sidewalks in front of their places for another year, then the town can “bring it back to the voter and educate them better next year” on how the money would be spent.

“He said, given the current political climate here in Morrisville, it’s really not worth bringing it back,” Dodge said.

McDowell said in his first year on the board — which now makes him the second-most experienced member — he went from not knowing many town employees to being a champion for them. He pleaded with residents to not take their ire out on town staff over the next month and a half.

“It can’t be personal,” he said. “The townspeople have spoken loud and clear. We’ve all heard it. Again, I just ask that we do this with civility.”

While many town employees might be feeling the heat and refraining from sticking their necks out, town recreation director Anna McCormick — whose full-time salary is one of the new items in the budget — jumped right into the fray Thursday, showering her colleagues with praise for maintaining a “really positive work environment.”

“I’ve just been really surprised at the people who have given their lives to take care of people and to serve the community. I feel really proud to be a part of that team,” she said.