After much “brouhaha” about snow and sidewalks for much of the past year, Woodstock Village voters decided on Tuesday night to keep the current sidewalk snow removal system which requires sidewalk-abutting property owners to clear off the snow themselves.
Several proposals to change the current system were placed on Tuesday’s Annual Village Meeting Ballot. They included proposals to (a) hire a new village employee for $100,000 to clear the sidewalks – that sum including $30,000 for summer highway work; (b) hire a contractor just for the winter, for $45,000; and (c) add $23,000 to the Village budget in order to give stipends to sidewalk-abutting property owners for their hard work.
It’s no surprise that the long run of “snowy” articles on the Village Meeting agenda took up well over half of the three-hour meeting. Some who spoke said they thought the Village should take full responsibility for winter sidewalk maintenance. Others said shoveling the sidewalk is just part of Village living – if your land abuts a sidewalk or two.
And then there was discussion of the issue of taxes and the relationship of taxes to snow removal (or the lack thereof). Village resident Joan Sterner noted, “It’s like taxation without representation. There are streets like Lincoln Street that have no sidewalks, and we’re going to be paying for it.”
Others who do have sidewalk-abutting property expressed their additional frustration at having to clear the snow, ice and debris and then having to go “at it” twice since snow often gets dumped right back on their cleared sidewalk by the Village street plow trucks.
“In effect, I, as a property owner in the Village…am responsible for removing the snow from the street because it is tossed onto my property,” High Street Village resident Barbara Kennedy said.
However, all the new proposals to change up the current system were flatly rejected.
In a “divide the house” standing vote of 75-33 (indicating just over 100 Village Meeting people in attendance) voters chose to approve the article that will keeping things just as they are with the current shovel-your-sidewalk-or-get-fined system in place.
All other articles from Village Meeting passed. These include:
1.$25,000 expenditure for an engineering study of a possible new Village snow dump site, to determine whether the parcel could be used without contaminating nearby properties.
The possible new snow dump location is a two acre parcel owned by the Woodstock Resort Corp. The access would be from Maxham Meadow Way, and the parcel is located diagonally from Woodstock Recycling and Refuse Corp., adjacent to a parcel used by the annual Apple and Crafts Fair. Municipal Manager Phil Swanson noted that the potential snow dump’s new location, if eventually approved, would not interfere with that field area.
2. $40,000 of Village budget surplus to stabilize taxes.
3. The Village Budget of $1,364,240 – of which $533,465 will be raised by taxes.
(There was some talk about how much the Village parking validation program is costing the village in revenue. In the newly approved budget, parking fines and meter deposits are projected to go down by $15,000 and $25,000, respectively.
However, according to Woodstock Police Chief Robbie Blish, the lower numbers are due to the business and tourist-friendly parking validation program – which is reportedly working quite well for businesses – and the impact of Tropical Storm Irene.
In all Village money matters, it is helpful to know – as was stated at last night’s meeting – that $25,000 equates to 1 cent on the Village tax rate. That’s $10 for every $100,000 in property valuation.
Village Trustees Eric Nesbitt and Chris Miller were each reelected to the Village Board of Trustees, unopposed.
Julia Carlisle
Woodstock Early Bird 
Posted by Corwin Sharp on March 21, 2012 at 13:22
A victory for enlightened self-interest! Regardless of the fact that the sidewalks “belong” to and are used by nearly all Village and Town residents, not to mention our visitors, only about one third of the separate parcels actually abut sidewalks. So here’s the math: if two-thirds of the property owners in the village have property that does not abut a sidewalk, why would they want to pay taxes to have the public sidewalks cleared of snow? The abutting property owners owner will do it, pay to have it done, or get fined. Kind of a NIMBY thing, I suppose.
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Posted by Peter Saman on March 22, 2012 at 07:47
Opportunities for exploitation of a segment of the population have been written into the laws of Vermont (perhaps inadvertently) before now. The Village ordinance 7402, based on Vermont Statute 2291(2) is just a current example of the lamentable attitudes among, what turned out to be the majority of those voting, at that particular Village Meeting. One current trustee said at a recent Trustee’s meeting in response to a question about the inequality created among the population by 7402, “As long as the State Law allows it, we can do it”.
60+ years ago there were Overseers of the Poor in every Vermont town. When questioned about how it was that some of the overseers had “maids” working in their homes and firewood for their personal use appearing at their at their door free of charge, the reply was similar, “There’s no law against it and it’s good for “them” to be working. Shortly after, the Welfare Department was created in Montpelier, to put a stop to the exploitation and Overseer abuse at the local level.
It appears in this Village, exploitation is acceptable and even advocated by the 75 voting to leave things the same at the 2012 Village Meeting.
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Posted by Jordan Engel on March 22, 2012 at 14:51
Isn’t this situation almost a text book definition of the tyranny (okay, a bit strong a word for the topic of sidewalk plowing, but..) of the majority. The trustees could show leadership and courage by acting on the same idea that supports taxing the whole population for roads, schools, etc even though not all benefit equally from those town resources. The only cogent argument for doing otherwise is that we’ve always done it this way. Hmmmm. I think I can remember other equally unfair practices that held on long past their legitimate lifetimes in which “tradition” masked more unseemly motives.
The trustees passed the buck on this one. Shame on you.
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Posted by Bob Pear on March 22, 2012 at 18:00
All but one, I made a motion to repeal 7402 a-d at the February Trustees meeting. There was no second on the motion.
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Posted by Corwin Sharp on March 23, 2012 at 09:19
I was at that meeting and Bob is correct. No other Trustee would second the motion. What’s done is done, I suppose. Next time the school taxes are due perhaps I’ll just refuse to support this public responsibility. After all, I have no children in our public schools, never have, never will. But for some reason I do think we all have a responsibility to others in our community.
Many thanks are due to Bob Pear for his initiation and support of the public discussion on the snow removal issue. He is a good man and gives of himself in the public interest – not his personal interest or gain. Thank you Bob and please don’t give up the fight…there are far to few of your character here or elsewhere.
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Posted by Jordan Engel on March 23, 2012 at 09:59
Yes. Thank you, Bob, for a great effort.
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Posted by Bob Pear on March 23, 2012 at 20:13
When it was proposed at the July meeting that we make the ordinance 7402 even more repressive by reducing the “clearing” time to 12 hours from the present 24, I pointed out then that there is an inequity in the system. In my naivety and idealism, I supported public discussion and I actually believed we could ultimately have an open community discussion, a meeting of the minds, and end up with a system that would serve the community better and be more equitable to us all.
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Posted by ann on March 23, 2012 at 20:24
I also want to thank Bob for all that he does. From walking Maple Street in the days after the flood concerned and reconnecting when he said he would, helping to gather Halloween Candy, participating in the Safe Routes to School meetings, and all he has put into this discussion. Thank you Bob. You do many things to make Woodstock a great place to live.
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Posted by Peter Saman on March 26, 2012 at 11:57
I don’t believe there is another municipality in Vermont with as few as 762 resident voters that employs a manager. In small communities like this Village, management is generally the province of the elected Select-board/Trustees The energy and attention Bob displays and acts on in that capacity is generally welcomed as an asset. Citizen based problem solving is at the very core of Vermont itself and should not be lost sight of along the way. I would encourage the other 4 Trustees to follow his lead and do the job many of us expect of them.
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