News & Citizen

Serving the People of Lamoille County with News Since 1881

Volume 123     No 10 No 5569            May 17,   2007 Thursday                           Morrisville, VT 05661                        Web Edition

Lamoille County Garage Sales

July 4th Planners Wanted! by Amy Kolb Noyes MORRISVILLE – Seven weeks and counting, and Morristown is struggling for a plan on how to pull off its annual Fourth of July Celebration. After advertising and asking around, the selectboard has come up short on volunteers to organize the big event. With planning time dwindling, selectmen are pleading for help and scaling back on the event. Continued on page 2 At a meeting Monday evening, May 14, Morristown Selectman Steve Bousquet (left) and Todd Yando pondered how to pull together the town¹s annual Fourth of July celebration with only seven weeks left to go before the holiday. Noyes photo Click here to check out the new Lamoille Restaurant Guide Waterville Sees Historic District Nomination by Mickey Smith WATERVILLE – Interested community members from Waterville gathered at the Town Hall on Monday night, May 14, to look over the town’s nomination to be included in the National Register for Historic Places. Continued on page 2 Citizens listened to Devin Colman's report on Waterville¹s National Historic Register application Monday, May 14. Smith photo For Questions or Comments on this web site please contact webmaster at http://www.kingdomsedge.com dan@kingdomsedge.com Wolcott voters lined up to reconsider the Lamoille County Sheriff Department's patrol budget Tuesday evening, May 15. The budget passed 85 to 45 with one 'maybe' cast. Noyes photo Wolcott Voters Approve All by Amy Kolb Noyes WOLCOTT – More than 130 Wolcott voters, about 13% of the town’s checklist, turned out for a special Town Meeting Tuesday night, May 15. At that meeting, Wolcott residents approved the Lamoille County Sheriff’s Department’s 2007-2008 road patrol budget, overturning a Town Meeting Day vote. Voters also approved spending up to $150,000 to renovate the old School Street school building for new town offices and selling the current Town Clerk’s office building and a landlocked parcel on the Craftsbury line. The proceeds of both sales are to go toward the School Street building renovations. Continued on page 2 Goodbye Charlie, Hello Echo by Mickey Smith MORRISTOWN – For those who haven’t noticed already, things have changed at the Morristown Armory. For starters the operational tanks are gone, but more importantly Charlie Company is now Echo Company. Continued on page 2 Read all the News, Sports and More Click Here To Subscribe Today Looking for something? Search for: Copyright © 2004 News&Citizen Inc. All rights reserved. Have a press release? edit@newsandcitizen.com e-mail correspondence concerning advertising should be addressed to news@newsandcitizen.com

Things Look This Way to Me

Editorial by J.B. McKinley 5/17/07

Wishing of How to

Do Things Effectively??

Looking around Lamoille County’s towns at continuing and current issues, I see several towns grappling with growth related projects. Often these are widely perceived as necessary projects – just too expensive in a time with high property taxes and the erosion of family incomes by high priced energy. Towns are scrapping over education spending, building projects, policing – you name it. Our towns’ infrastructure from roads and  sewers to office space is aging and often undersized. And how are we dealing with these problems? Very differently, but mostly not efficiently or quickly. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem that we deal with these things sensibly; that is, does it make sense to defeat several budgets and then grudgingly approve the very same budget? Is the “message” worth the cost?

Take the contrast between Morristown’s and Wolcott’s separate needs for more and more efficient town office space. At a quick glance, if you’ve followed the evolution of the Morristown Town Clerk’s space, Morristown has planned and planned. Much money and time was spent on developing a grant friendly joint project with the aging library. Voters rejected those plans. Planning looked at many sites and finally the town (and its citizens) basically let private enterprise take over, threw up its collective hands and decided to rent. At this point, even planning for any new town-built and owned office space is a dead issue. Meanwhile, in Wolcott, the town and townspeople have decided to essentially go it alone, bypassing lots of consultants and planning. The selectboard has decided to simply and relatively inexpensively go ahead and renovate some old school space and solve their problem.

However, whatever approach a town decides to adopt, is there an easier way? In these cases and many others (for example the current impasse that both Eden and Hyde Park have over approving a school budget) the only way forward has been through many a meeting, sometimes heated. It seems awfully hard to find the mutually agreeable middle ground on some of these issues. Maybe there’s a role in here for an agency such as the Lamoille County Planning Commission.

I’m not suggesting that LCPC get deeply involved in any of these town issues. What I am suggesting is that an organization like LCPC could perhaps compile a file of solutions that other Vermont towns, perhaps of similar size, have already figured out. Is it possible that much bickering and bitterness might be avoided by learning from some other town that’s been there and done that?

We in Lamoille County, are not alone with the costly pain of growth. Yes, it’s probably true that our endless meetings and redundant discussion are what democracy is all about, but are we all children and have to learn everything the hard way? Maybe it’s dreaming, but if a little out of town, out of county data gathering and exploration could hand one of our towns a solution on a platter, I’d be all for the idea.