Timeline

The Westbury Village Project is following a four step approach: Ask, Investigate, Discuss, and Decide. 

 

Fall 2021: 

We asked residents if they supported exploring a potential village in Westbury. Of 164 responses, 162 supported the idea and 2 did not. We encourage all voices to stay involved in future discussions. 

 

Winter 2021-2022: 

This time was spent collecting data on other villages and consulting with organizations that support non-profit cooperatives.  

 

January 2022: 

We reached out to the Town of Colchester to emphasize the need to transfer public services and infrastructure inherited by our co-op when we purchased the park - specifically, services managed publicly in other parts of the town. 

 

April 2022: 

On April 12th, 14 residents and representative from the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI), Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO), and Tarrant, Gillies & Shems (TGS) attended a Colchester Selectboard meeting, requesting town support in researching a village model that would benefit both Westbury residents and Colchester. 

 

May 2022: 

We held bi-weekly sessions to inform and answer questions from residents about the project. 

 

Also in May, two members from the group met with the Champlain Water District and were told that there was a path to the wholesale rate if the residents legitimately formed a village as “all municipalities get the wholesale rate.”

 

June & July 2022: 

This time was spent refining the plan based on the feedback received, focusing on two main points:  

1. The creation and operation of the village should pay for itself. 

2. Any discussion to transfer a service from the co-op to the village must be transparent and have benefits to the community demonstrated by both the co-op and the village. 

 

August 2022:

Seven Days published a piece on mobile home communities. Westbury was included and the story reflected the work towards creating a village municipality and that the first efforts would be to secure the municipal wholesale rate for water.

 

5 days after the newspaper article came out, the Colchester Selectboard sent a letter to the President of the Westbury Co-operative and blind copied all the voting members of the co-op. It was titled an “opinion letter” but contained many comments that were factually incorrect or unresearched statements.

 

The letter produced an initial response of fear in some- “don’t kick the sleeping bear” and uncertainty in others – a belief that statements in the letter that were not true might be true.

 

September – November 2022:

Residents of Westbury discussed the Town’s letter and researched the validity of the statements made by the Town.

 

In the long run, the letter (resulting in subsequent research and discussions) may have been one of the reasons that over 80% of the registered voters living in the Westbury neighborhood, signed the petition to form a village.

 

December 2022:

A Village Project representative attended the Champlain Water District (CWD) board meeting and asked for assistance with the project. CWD declined.

 

January 2023:

A Village Project member begins attending all CWD commissioner’s meetings to become more informed about water distribution in Chittenden county and to better understand why CWD saw no value in the request to review Westbury’s research.

 

August 2023:

The residents of Colchester living in the Westbury area submit a petition to the Town of Colchester following VT statute for the creation of the Village of Westbury. The village was created later that month.

 

October 2023:

Two members of the Village project attended a CWD commissioners meeting to respond to concerns that CWD had been raising about the Village Project that seemed to parrot ideas and language from the Colchester Selectboard August 2022 letter (that CWD had been copied on).

 

At that meeting, during citizens to be heard, a presentation was made to inform the commissioners why:

 

• Out of 117 water systems in CWD’s jurisdiction, the Westbury water system was unique and the granting of wholesale municipal water rates could not lead to a fad of village creations.

• That Businesses, HOAs and Co-ops cannot “form a village”

 

November 2023:

The Village held its first Village meeting and selected officers including a Board of Trustees.

 

The Village sent a letter to CWD indicating they were in the process of acquiring the Westbury water system and desired the wholesale rate once the transfer was complete.

 

CWD did not respond to the letter from the Village trustees.

 

June 2024:

CWD takes action that attempts to limit any new villages from receiving wholesale water rates by introducing a new policy stating CWD chose to work with and supply at wholesale rate only the municipalities it currently had relations with.

 

November 2024:

The Village asks to be put on the agenda of the December CWD Commissioner’s meeting to formally discuss their request for the wholesale water rate.

 

December 2024:

The Village responds to Commissioner’s questions at the monthly meeting.

 

February 2024:

CWD staff provide guidance paper to Commissioners for a “No” vote against the Village’s request

 

March 2024:

Village and CWD meet to discuss the water system components between the CWD transmission line and the Westbury distribution system as well as a possible site survey of the area in June.

 

May 2024:

The Village responds to CWD with comments on the CWD guidance paper.