The board started the evening with a hearing on the proposed Wilmington Historic Review District zoning amendment, but nobody spoke, either in favor of or opposition to the downtown zoning change. Board members voted unanimously in favor of adopting the amendment. Voters have 20 days to petition for a public vote on the amendment; if no petition is received before the deadline, the amendment will be in force.
In a related development, the board received a petition with 151 certified signatures asking them to warn a special town meeting regarding future decisions on the pergola at the downtown Bank Park. Opponents of the pergola advocate its removal from the historic review district, calling it “out of character” with the town’s historic village. At an earlier board meeting, several pergola opponents called for an Australian ballot on the issue.
The petition the board received Wednesday evening calls for a special meeting to decide whether the town will “vote on any public questions related to the removal of the pergola at the Bank Park from the Wilmington Historical Design Control District by Australian ballot.”
Board members warned the meeting for Tuesday, November 10, at 7 pm. Responding to several questions, selectboard chair Meg Streeter explained that the meeting would only decide how future votes on the pergola are conducted, the fate of the pergola would not be decided at the special town meeting. “It will be a regular town meeting with a floor vote, unless someone wants to call for a paper ballot,” she said. “If it passes, presumably, we’ll be getting another petition for a ballot question to remove the pergola in the future.”
The board also adopted a new road ordinance after making a number of changes. The proposed ordinance came under fire at a hearing last month from a number of residents and property owners. Under the earlier proposed ordinance, some existing town roads that don’t meet certain requirements would be discontinued, becoming private roads maintained by the property owners. In the ordinance passed Wednesday evening, there’s no reference to discontinuing the roads. “We took out all the references to the discontinuing of roads,” said town attorney Bob Fisher. “So this ordinance applies to the takeover and reclassification of roads.” Board members made several other clarifications before passing the ordinance.
Laura Sibilia met with the board to gauge their continued support for the Vermont Life Wine & Harvest festival. She said the festival would eventually become too big to be held at its current location, near the intersection of routes 9 and 100 South. “Last year we had 1,500 people and this year we had 1,700 people,” Sibilia said. “So it’s growing.” She noted that the organizer of the Garlic Festival that was held at the same location found that 5,000 people over a weekend was too much for the site. “We had 1,200 on Saturday,” Sibilia said. “If we had 800 more on a Saturday, we’d be stretching it.”
Sibilia said the chamber’s festival committee would be looking at more than one proposal for next year’s venue, and there could be some pressure from Dover and Mount Snow to move the event north. Although she said she sees the event as a “tri-town” festival with benefits for Whitingham, Wilmington, and Dover, the chamber offered a look at some of their expenses and a few suggestions for support from the town that might encourage the committee to keep the current venue. The suggestions included some post-event repairs to the site, a police traffic detail, and cash support of $3,500 to offset the cost of the site.
“Keeping the festival here is good,” said board member Bruce Mullen, “but my concern is that we don’t want to get to the point where we’re playing the towns off each other.” Board member Susan Haughwout said any cash donation should be approved by voters at Town Meeting.
Board member Jim Burke said he would support an even larger cash donation for the event, as much as $5,000. “I’d have no problem asking voters for $5,000,” he said.
Board member Tom Consolino sparked a testy exchange when he expressed incredulity that the highest proposal from board members was $5,000. “Ask yourself how much you’re willing to lose this festival and how much would the town lose if we lost it,” he said. “I think we should be talking about $10,000 or more.”
Burke told Consolino not to take offense at the amount he suggested. “I’m not going to sit here and take a lecture,” he said. “If you disagree with me, you don’t need to put it out in the public. We can agree to disagree, but I don’t need someone saying ‘how much do you want to lose this festival’ when what I was expressing was that I’m all in favor of it. If you want to discuss more (money), I’m all in favor of it.”
Haughwout asked Consolino if he was on the chamber board. “You know I am,” he said.
“Then maybe you should recuse yourself,” she shot back.
Board members told Sibilia they’re in favor of keeping the festival in Wilmington. “The festival is not leaving Wilmington,” Sibilia said. “The tented site may go somewhere else, but this event is meant to be in all the towns.”
In other matters, the board agreed to discuss sewer rates at an upcoming meeting after John Willard complained that the rates are unfair. He said he pays as much for sewer service at his house as a family of four, yet he produces substantially less effluent. “A young family uses as much in one month as I use in a year,” he said. “It’s the only thing I know of that’s not priced by what you use.”
He suggested charging for sewer usage based on the amount of water used by a household, as is done in many other districts. Board members pointed out that the two districts aren’t identical, and that the water district does not belong to the town. “We’d have a town collection system based on someone else’s meter system,” said board chair Meg Streeter. “There was some discussion about how much it would cost to install a flow meter, but it was prohibitive. But let us do some research and talk about it at another meeting.”
We have to invest in our future. Cheapassing our future just doesn't work.
No doubt we need more Board members with Haughwout's concern for public funds and elimination of potential conflicts of interest. There is an election coming up isn't there?