The purpose of this review is to try to understand the Town’s position. We have attempted to get the Town involved with the village project since January 2022 and we will continue to do so. We are not trying to build a case here but we hope providing a separate opinion may promote discussion.

 

Below are sections (2c, 2d & 2e) of the Selectboard’s letter. The Town’s statements are in italic and underlined. Bulleted points are our responses to their statements. If you have not seen the full opinion letter from the Town, contact Gayle Pezzo for a copy.

 

Town’s Position:

2c. Governments often contract with private or non-profit entities to deliver specific services. It isn’t often that governments are created to deliver a small suite of services directly such as is being contemplated by WHOA. This may be one of the reasons that there has not been a creation of a Vermont municipal village in the last 70 years. In fact, many villages have concluded operations.

 

Our Position:

• We disagree with the statement that “It isn’t often that governments are created to deliver a small suite of services”.  There are over 90 villages and fire districts throughout Vermont that do just that. Vermont incorporated villages are setup by the State specifically to address a small suite of services that a Town cannot or does not want to provide.

• There could be an endless debate on why no new villages have been created in 70 years. From our research, we believe it is just as likely that towns have been able and willing to address the needs of their residents in a fair and equitable way that has generally removed the need for new villages.

•  Asking why some villages have concluded operations is a good question. There is a great paper by Edward Howe called Vermont Incorporated Villages: A Vanishing Institution. It has helped us ask the questions: Why did citizens form villages and why did some villages conclude operations.

• For an objective opinion, we believe it is important to also ask:

  • Why does the incorporated village work for 32 municipalities in Vermont?

  • What unique characteristics of 10 VSA 6242 make this a unique solution for Westbury

  • What are the circumstances in Colchester that may make a village a smart choice but not be necessary in another town?

 

Town’s Position:

2d. If WHOA roads became public, you would have to hire engineers to study and evaluate speed limits to make the limits enforceable under law and in traffic court, and speed limits below 25 miles per hour are difficult to approve and enforce as a municipality.

 

Our Position:

• Since you provided your opinion letter we have tabled our discussion on creating village roads.

• That said, Westbury’s roads are constructed to Town standards. If in the future there is a discussion about these roads, the issues should be similar to discussions Colchester has had about their own roads.

• It is our understanding that the current 15 MPH speed limit in Westbury is actually set by the Town of Colchester so we are unclear how or why this statement has been made.

 

 Town’s Position:

2e. Grant funding for ongoing operations by municipalities are almost non-existent and those that exist are expensive to administer especially on a small scale.  The grant from the State

Agency of Transportation is about $1,600 per mile, or about $4,800 per year for WHOA’s 3 miles of road and comes with complex paperwork, reporting and financial auditing requirements that could cost more than $4,8 00 to comply with. We understand from some of your web-based information that WHOA believes the Town would contract with the village to plow for around $4,800, the value of the possible state grant. This is seemingly based on a misunderstanding related to the Town’s budget reduction following our discontinuance of plowing some of the private roads. We reduced the budget by $19,300 after that discontinuance, but that did not represent the cost of plowing 15 of the 44 miles of plowing private roads, merely the external and overtime costs of doing so. We applied the fixed capital and non-overtime labor costs to better maintain the public roads. It is not representative of the total cost to plow and maintain public roads by mile.

 

Our Position:

• Again, since you have provided your opinion letter we have tabled this discussion.

• We agree with your estimate of the VTrans subsidy per mile for Class 3 roads.

• We do not believe the Town of Colchester’s cost per mile for residential neighborhood street winter maintenance is $4,800. Our discussions internally have used cost per mile similar to the current agreement in Barton where the Town plows certain Village roads. That figure is $8,500 / mile or for Westbury we are modeling $38,250 (not $4,800). Please let us know where you have seen that statement so that we can address it.

• Referencing the Town’s white paper from Aug 3, 2017, your estimate for plowing 14 miles of road was $20,000 ($1,428 / mile) and your estimate to plow the remaining 27 miles of private roads in Colchester to be $191,281 ($7,085 / mile for O&M, not capital purchases). We do not consider either of these figures an accurate accounting of the cost per mile either but both are significantly less than private contracting alternatives.

 

Reviewing the information above we ask our four questions:

 

• Why would the village project be good for Westbury?

• Does the project hurt our neighbors outside of Westbury?

• Under what conditions would the Town partner with Westbury?

• Why wouldn’t the Town want to help its residents living in Westbury?

 

The next post will be on 3 and 3a.

 

Feel free to weigh in with comments or questions.

Hope all is well,

-Gayle P. & Ralph P.

The Village Project Team