Vermont

In Vermont, ‘Town Meeting’ is democracy embodied. What can the rest of the country learn from it? – The Boston Globe

Published

2 years ago

March 18, 2024

In Vermont, ‘Town Meeting’ is democracy embodied. What can the rest of the country learn from it? – The Boston Globe

But in pockets of New England, democracy is done a bit differently. People can still participate directly and in person. One day each year, townsfolk gather to hash out local issues. They talk, listen, debate, vote. And in places like Elmore, once itâs all over, they sit down together for a potluck lunch.

Town Meeting is a tradition that, in Vermont, dates back more than 250 years, to before the founding of the republic. But it is under threat. Many people feel they no longer have the time or ability to attend such meetings. Last year, residents of neighboring Morristown voted to switch to a secret ballot system, ending their town meeting tradition.

Not so in Elmore, population 886. Its residents are used to holding tight to traditions. Theyâve fought to keep open their post office, their store and their school, the last one-room schoolhouse in the state. Last fall, Elmore residents voted 2-1 in favor of keeping their town meetings.

And so it is at 9 a.m. on the first Tuesday in March, when, atop an elevated stage, moderator Jon Gailmor stands up.

âGood morning, everyone, and welcome to democracy,â he says. âThis is the real thing, and we should all be proud that weâre doing this.â

Community and government, hand in hand

Elmore calls itself the beauty spot of Vermont. The town borders a lake, which in early March is dotted with people ice fishing. Beyond, a mountain rises. At night, steam floats up from sugarhouses, where maple sap is being boiled down into syrup.

The heartbeat of the town is the store. âIâve always said itâs a live, living, breathing creature. I donât own it; she owns me,â says Kathy Miller, 63, who bought the store with her husband, Warren, in 1983. People would come in not only to buy milk and pick up the mail but to use the fax machine, find a plumber or just to swap gossip.

In 2020, Warren died. He loved collecting things â advertising signs, beer-tap handles, snowboards. At home, Miller looks through some of his collections and talks about selling stuff. Her sense of loss is profound. Her best friend, the man she worked alongside every day, is gone.

The year he died, COVID-19 restrictions also took a toll on the business, and Miller found she was struggling. Then townsfolk began giving her money in advance. âI had one gentleman give me $5,000 just to keep the store going,â Miller says, choking up.

Miller kept running the store for another 18 months before she was bought out by a community trust, set up to ensure the store remains open. These days, the store is run by Jason Clark. Miller helps out when sheâs not serving meals at a food kitchen. And she still collects her bills from P.O. Box 1.

Miller recalls that after joining the state grocersâ association in the 1980s, she testified before Congress about the impact of credit card fees. Back then, she believed that little people could have a voice in national politics. But these days, she says, Washington has gotten away from the basics. Too big, she says. Too messed up. Tilted off its axis.

Her husband served as a Republican representative in the Vermont state legislature, and Miller describes herself as a Republican who hasnât drunk the Kool-Aid. She notes both Vermont and Elmore have shifted more Democratic over the years. But at Town Meeting, she says, political differences donât mean a thing.

âThereâs no animosity,â she says. âPeople can talk about things. You shake hands with your neighbor when you leave.â

At Town Meeting, Miller makes a pitch to increase the townâs library funding from $1,000 per year to $3,000, to reflect the increasing patronage and expenses. The townsfolk agree.

A moderator who keeps things moderate

Gailmor, 75, is a singer-songwriter who brings an element of performance to his role as moderator.

âReappraisals of your homes are going to start in the spring,â he says as he reads through a dry list of announcements. But then, to laughter, he adds: âSo spruce âem up.â

He describes himself as an independent voter who has supported both Republicans and Democrats over the years.

The day before the meeting, Gailmor plays his guitar at the library in Morristown. Heâs helping a group of senior citizens practice the songs they have written for an upcoming performance. They are supposed to ax two of the eight songs but canât bring themselves to choose. Instead, they decide, they will perform them all.

The seniors love Gailmor, who says he has somehow aged to become one of therm. They joke about âflatlandersâ â people not born in Vermont â and have come up with a song that celebrates the spring thaw: âSo break out the booze, weâve got nothinâ to lose, embracing the ooze, itâs the mud season blues.â

Gailmor first moved to Elmore in 1980 and says he found the town meeting tradition nothing short of miraculous. It wasnât some politician spouting off but real people taking part. He was so inspired that he even wrote a song about it. He plays it for the seniors.

âGreet the old town folks, hear the gossip and the jokes, dip a donut in a good strong cup of Joe,â Gailmor sings. âFind your favorite chair, plant your buttocks there â weâre getting down to business, donât you know.â

At town meetings, people sometimes go beyond voting on local issues and decide to take a stand on national issues of the day. At home, Gailmor holds a photograph of his wife, Cathy Murphy, who died two years ago. Captured by an Associated Press photographer, the image shows Murphy at an Elmore Town Meeting in the 1980s, when she was speaking out against nuclear weapons as part of the Nuclear Freeze movement.

âYou feel important,â Gailmor says. âYou feel like you are being listened to.â

This year, Elmore decides to take a stance on another broader issue by adopting a declaration of inclusion. It states the town will welcome all people regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.

A âforced civilityâ that works

âForced civility.” Frank Bryan, a retired University of Vermont professor who wrote a book about town meetings, coined that term to describe the way people dealing with disagreements in person are compelled to recognize each otherâs common humanity in a way that larger-scale political interactions do not allow.

That doesn’t mean it always goes smoothly. In Gailmor’s decade of moderating, he says one incident stands out. He invoked the rules to stop one man from repeatedly talking on a particular issue. The man seethed, then came up to Gailmor after the meeting to say he felt like chopping his head off. He stormed off and later moved away. The animosity with Gailmor was never resolved.

Miller says she learned her own lesson about small-town politics after once putting up a political sign about school choice in her store. She had one customer who wouldnât come back and stopped speaking to her, she says. Even with that, though, she is confident about the gentility of the system in which she participates.

Just having voters show up for hours on a weekday morning is challenging. Morristown is one of many Vermont towns to end the tradition of town meetings. Richard Watts, the director of the Center for Research on Vermont at UVM, says people in larger towns tend to feel less sense of connection.

There’s a key downside when a town moves to secret ballot, also known as an Australian ballot because states there were the first to adopt such a system in the mid-19th century: It’s usually a straight up-or-down vote. That means people can’t make tweaks or debate issues. And for some, the open, collegial debate is the genius of the entire system.

âYouâll always have disagreements, and sometimes, sides,â Miller says. âBut itâs not hate. Thereâs not the rage that Iâm seeing on TV.â

Why people get involved (and stay involved)

At the meeting, people leaf through the town report, which features a photo of Brent Hosking and a note thanking him for his 25 years of service as Elmoreâs volunteer fire chief.

A retired industrial arts teacher, Hosking, 74, first bought an old farmhouse in Elmore in 1979. What’s sprouted on his property since then is testament to his never-ending tinkering. He has built a huge barn, an addition to his home and a sugarhouse to make maple syrup. Antique vehicles are scattered around his farm like animal carcasses, projects for another day.

He’s tapped 400 maple trees â a small operation compared to some of his neighbors â and still uses buckets to carry the sap from some of them to the boiler. He and his wife, Sharon Fortune, sell some of the syrup they make from home and use the rest. Not only on their French toast and pancakes, but also in spaghetti sauce, stews, baking, on top of popcorn and in their morning coffee.

âThe people in town, if they come over to eat, they say âWell, is there maple syrup in this?â” Hosking says, chuckling.

He helped start the fire department in 1983 after locals tired of paying neighboring towns to extinguish fires. They get callouts for car accidents, structure fires, and unprepared hikers who get stranded on Mount Elmore.

Being involved has helped foster a sense of community, Hosking says. He knows others will have his back, like when he was once on vacation and other department volunteers corralled his escaped cattle back onto his farm. Town Meeting helps foster that sense of community, he says. It’s a time to get to know your neighbor, he says, which is important in a small town.

Hosking says he’s a Democrat but supports Vermont’s moderate Republican Governor Phil Scott. Like many of his fellow citizens in town, he doesn’t like the turn that national politics has taken.

“You feel helpless, because all you do is one vote,” Hosking says. âIt seems like it gets lost. And I think a lot of people in the nation feel the same way.”

Democracy accomplished. Letâs eat.

Elmoreâs Town Meeting has been going for nearly four hours. What has unfolded represents a cross-section of democracy, of people choosing for themselves how to live and work and govern.

â First, a big surprise: Nancy Davis throws her hat in the ring for a position on the cemetery commission, going up against incumbent John Fish. Nobody can remember a contested cemetery election. Davis, a relative newcomer to Elmore, wants to get more involved.

From there, democracy plays out. People write their choices on Post-it size pieces of green paper and slot them in an old mailbox. Three vote-counters tally the results: Fish 37, Davis 36 â and one spoiled ballot by somebody who has voted for both candidates.

â An impassioned speech by Julie Bomengen secures an extra $500 for the Lamoille Community Food Share, raising Elmoreâs annual contribution to $750.

â Several people have been criticizing the town’s spending habits. Others argue that replacing equipment like the road maintenance truck will only end up costing more if the can is kicked down the road. âWe have just spent two-and-a-half million on this new garage, and then we go out and put $300,000 into a new truck. I think that’s a little overkill,â Shorty Towne tells the crowd.

â After exhaustive discussions, Elmore’s annual town budget of $1.1 million is passed in a voice vote. There is no dissent.

â A move to change next year’s Town Meeting to a Saturday to encourage better attendance is rejected after a survey on people’s preferences proved inconclusive. Elmore, after all, likes its traditions.

Gailmor, who has been voted in for another year as moderator, commends townsfolk for holding a particularly lively and well-attended meeting. Kipp Bovey, who has been active in the meeting, has made good progress on knitting her sweater. Towne has had his say about the truck. Democracy has unfolded on a small canvas. And the much-discussed American political polarization? It’s nowhere in sight.

It’s time to adjourn.

âLunch is cold,â Gailmor says. âBut it will be in the church.â

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Vermont

As Vermont legislative session stretches on, adjournment is a moving target – VTDigger

Published

6 hours ago

May 27, 2026

Press Room

As Vermont legislative session stretches on, adjournment is a moving target – VTDigger

The Statehouse dome in Montpelier pictured in January 2025. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

The session stretches on

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, the longest-serving member of the Vermont House and the chair of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee.

She’s ready to adjourn for the year and tend to her garden.

Emmons, who was first elected in 1982 and has been a committee chair for 20 years, said the longest legislative session she remembers ended in the middle of June, during the 1990s.

“But to go until the end of May is, I hope that’s not going to be our norm,” Emmons said.

As joint Senate and House committees continue to debate some of the year’s most significant bills — the state budget, education reform, property tax rates — the legislative session has dragged on longer than in years past.

For Vermont’s part-time Legislature, adjourning late causes practical complications in people’s lives. Many legislators arrange for seasonal housing in Montpelier, like Emmons who said she rents an apartment and lives alongside two other representatives. Although Emmons no longer works full time outside the legislative session, other lawmakers have jobs they planned to return to and childcare arrangements that end soon.

The Legislature has typically adjourned in the middle of May in recent years, so many lawmakers plan accordingly.

Last year, the last day of the session was June 16, though most committees finished their work by the end of May.

John Bloomer, secretary of the Senate, said that he thinks of 2020 as one of the most memorable legislative sessions. That year the Legislature didn’t adjourn until September. And because government procedure was so disrupted by the pandemic, lawmakers had to pass multiple short-term budgets, Bloomer said.

Other lengthy years include 1961, during which the legislature didn’t adjourn until Aug. 1, due to a budget stalemate between the governor and the leader of the Senate.

Rep. Emilie Krasnow, D-South Burlington, said she collected signatures to run for reelection early this year, anticipating the legislative session might get drawn out. She’s heard from other House members that they have a harder time campaigning against opponents back home when the session draws on. Their opponents may be living closer to voters and have more time to campaign, she said.

By having a session for only half the year, Vermont’s Legislature is made up of community members with occupations rather than professional politicians. That leaves plenty of room for legislators to have potential conflicts of interest in their area of expertise, or — on the flip side — lack thorough expertise in the committee work they are assigned. But Emmons said she thinks the pros outweigh the cons.

When legislators have a gaggle of staffers doing work for them, they start to disengage, Emmons said. Whereas in Vermont, legislators are always talking to each other face to face.

“You’ve got a problem with a piece of legislation that’s coming out of another committee? You go and talk to the members of that committee, you go and talk to the chair,” Emmons said.

In the know

A proposed change to Stowe’s charter that would allow the town to double its local option tax to 2% “will die on the wall” in the Senate Government Operations Committee, the committee’s chair, Rutland Republican Sen. Brian Collamore, said Tuesday.

The committee voted 1-4 against advancing the charter change, which passed the House last week. Only Sen. Becca White, D-Windsor, voted for it.

The proposal, H.954, faced opposition from the outset this year because some lawmakers were concerned that approving it would set off a wave of requests from other towns to boost their own local taxes on meals, rooms and other purchases. Debate over Stowe’s change was further complicated when the House Ways and Means Committee revised the language that town voters approved, altering where some of the newly proposed tax revenue would go.

Under Ways and Means’ plan, which that committee drafted Friday, half of the newly added 1% in local tax would be deposited into a new, statewide fund for town highway projects. That fund, which would also get revenue from other sources, has been proposed in the Senate’s version of the budget bill, H.951.

Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, called the changes to Stowe’s charter “an appalling precedent” ahead of the vote in Senate Gov Ops on Tuesday.

“We are not raising transportation money on the backs of visitors to Stowe and Stowe residents,” she said.

— Shaun Robinson

The House last week passed a version of the law enforcement masking bill stripped of its provisions penned in the Senate that were supported by anti-ICE activists. Lawmakers Tuesday reviewed a copy of the changed bill, S.208, on the Senate floor.

Rather than voting on the bill — as changed by the House — legislators agreed to send the bill to a conference committee, made up of lawmakers from both chambers, in an attempt to reach a consensus.

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, the House had not yet appointed lawmakers to the conference committee. If the House does not appoint members to the committee, or if the committee fails to reach a consensus, the bill will die.

— Charlotte Oliver

On the move

The House on Tuesday passed S.71, a data privacy bill, after a landslide 129-3 vote.

“This legislation limits what data can be collected, requires full transparency with consumers about how their data is used, increases protections for sensitive information, and bans manipulative data practices designed to exploit consumers,” House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said in a statement. “Most importantly, it gives Vermonters real tools to fight back; the right to correct their data, opt out of collection, obtain a personal copy, and know exactly which third parties have received their data.”

Two years ago, Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a more stringent data privacy bill, with supporters of the bill blaming tech industry lobbyists for spreading misinformation about it.

Some of the House’s strongest data privacy proponents blamed a similar lobbying push for weakening this year’s bill. The amended bill now heads to the Senate for further consideration.

— Ethan Weinstein

Dog days

What’s the end of a legislative session without some shenanigans?

As of Wednesday, there’s a new portrait up on the Statehouse walls — and it features not a historic leader but rather Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky’s dog, Laika.

Vyhovsky brought her 13-year-old Samoyed to the Statehouse last Wednesday night, and captured the photo, which shows Laika seated dutifully at the Senate dais, to prove, should she ever be asked, how her dog “was acting lieutenant governor for about 10 minutes.”

What was supposed to be a clandestine transfer of power, however, turned out to be anything but. Laika left white hair all over the LG’s chair, Vyhovsky said — so much so that upon seeing it the next day, Vyhovsky explained, Lt. Gov. John Rodgers remarked that it looked as if “a sheep had died” there.

Investigation by Senate staff, including a review of security camera footage, soon exposed the two Vyhovskys as the culprits. Staff then had to lint-roll the chair and, apparently, shampoo it as well — two things Vyhosky said she never meant to happen.

“I have since apologized to the lieutenant governor for forgetting a lint roller,” she said.

Vyhovsky said the LG was amused by the story, however, and asked for a framed version of her photo as penance for the hairy inconvenience. The photo was tacked up, in a well-appointed gold frame, in the Statehouse on Wednesday. Vyhovsky hopes the location will stay a secret, until The Powers That Be find out.

In exchange for this hot scoop, VTDigger agreed not to reveal its location and spoil the fun.

Here’s one hint, though: “I just have fun trolling John Bloomer,” Vyhovsky said.

— Shaun Robinson

Department of corrections

Yesterday’s newsletter misstated which chamber Tim Ashe led. He was, of course, the Senate pro tem. It’s been a long session …

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Vermont

VT Creemee Passport Is A Ticket To Dairy Bliss

Published

18 hours ago

May 27, 2026

Press Room

VT Creemee Passport Is A Ticket To Dairy Bliss

By James Kent

Vermont’s favorite summer pastime has upped the ante for 2025 with the VT Creemee Passport. No, this won’t get you over the border to Canada, and you can’t use it to vote, but when you bring your VT Creemee Passport to participating creemee businesses, you’ll collect stamps and earn free perks like sprinkles, maple drizzle, and size upgrades.

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Vermont

Lawmakers Are Closing In on a Package to Reform Education in Vermont | Seven Days

Published

1 day ago

May 26, 2026

Press Room

Lawmakers Are Closing In on a Package to Reform Education in Vermont | Seven Days

The Vermont Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved an education-reform bill that calls for voluntary school district mergers — leaving the House to weigh in on the compromise legislation that could potentially resolve the biggest issue of the session.

The 27-2 vote in favor of the plan — which lawmakers fine-tuned last week in close consultation with the administration of Gov. Phil Scott — signaled that the legislature and the governor have settled many of their differences about the future of education in Vermont.

The House voted late Tuesday afternoon to form a conference committee to try to quickly work through differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, including class-size minimums and school-construction aid. If the negotiations go smoothly, the stage could be set for adjournment of the legislature this week.

Tuesday’s development signals that a long-predicted standoff between the governor and the legislature appeared to have been averted.

The governor had advocated for months for mandatory school district mergers, even threatening to keep the legislature in session until it complied with his demand. Lawmakers objected to forced mergers, and instead insisted on local decision-making around consolidation.

Scott ultimately backed down on his ultimatum.

Sen. Seth Bongartz Credit: Kevin McCallum

“The governor made a major concession in the context of good-faith negotiations,” Sen. Seth Bongartz (D-Bennington) said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “That showed a willingness to listen and to work with the legislature to achieve something positive for Vermont taxpayers and for Vermont’s children.”

The version of H.955 passed by the Senate Tuesday has the same framework as the bill passed by the House in April, with some notable changes.

It creates seven cooperative education service agencies, or CESAs, regional entities that allow districts to share resources. Within those CESAs, committees would be formed to consider voluntary school district mergers. The bill also calls for a new education funding formula that allots the average student the same base dollar amount rather than leaving spending decisions to local voters.

After the Senate Education and Finance committees failed to produce a bill that leaders deemed suitable, a small group of senators moved into closed-door meetings with several House members and representatives from Gov. Phil Scott’s administration to hammer out a “consensus amendment” that was brought to the floor on Tuesday.

Sen. Ruth Hardy (D-Addison), Senate minority leader Scott Beck (R-Caledonia), Education chair Sen. Seth Bongartz (D-Bennington) and Finance chair Sen. Ann Cummings (D-Washington) worked on the amendment with House committee chairs Rep. Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (D-Brattleboro), Rep. Pattie McCoy (R-Rutland).

Hardy said in an interview on Monday that legislators told the administration last week that there was no legislative support — in either the Democratic or Republican caucuses — for mandatory school district mergers. Ultimately, Hardy said, Scott’s team accepted the idea of voluntary mergers and the legislators conceded to a shorter timeline for voluntary town votes on school district mergers and the implementation of the new funding formula.

The Senate amendment largely preserves the process laid out in the House bill by which school districts would consider voluntary mergers. Study committees made up of school board members from different districts would be required to take part in facilitated meetings to contemplate mergers into districts of at least 2,000 students. Because merging will not be mandatory, some of those committees might decide to merge while others may not. Some of Vermont’s larger districts may not even have to contemplate merging because they’re already big enough.

Under the Senate’s amendment, merger committees are required to meet by October and finalize their recommendations by September 1, 2027. Voters would then weigh in on mergers on Town Meeting Day 2028, eight months earlier than the November 2028 vote called for in the House bill.

The amendment also puts a nine-year moratorium on towns petitioning to withdraw from school districts, which might happen if residents fear their school would be closed in a bigger district.

“It was mostly just to keep the process from getting too chaotic,” Hardy said.

The amendment also includes language to prevent small districts from being left out of the merger process. Agency of Education officials said last week that could create isolated or “orphan” districts that would be too small to operate efficiently under the new funding formula. Hardy likened such districts to ones that “nobody picked … for the kickball team.”

By November 2029, the State Board of Education must submit a report to the legislature naming school districts with fewer than 750 students that have not successfully merged. Another process laid out in the amendment allows isolated districts to appeal to the legislature in order to merge with a neighboring district.

The amendment also bumps up by one year the date by which the new funding formula would be implemented, to July 1, 2029 — the same date that new school districts and new property tax classifications would formally go into effect. Some smaller districts would likely merge because they wouldn’t be financially viable under the foundation formula unless they achieve greater scale, Hardy said. School districts that merge, or already have 2,000 students, would also be prioritized for school construction aid.

A number of things would have to happen before the new funding formula goes into effect. Those include decisions related to funding for career and technical education, special education, sparse schools, high schools, geographic cost differences, prekindergarten and transportation. A report commissioned by the legislature that will shed more light on those issues is due at the end of this year. The governor wanted to remove those contingencies, Hardy said on the Senate floor on Tuesday, but legislators advocated to keep them.

Not everyone thought that was a good idea.

Sen. Russ Ingalls (R-Essex), one of two Republican senators who voted against the bill, noted that the funding formula was years away from being put into place, and he expressed doubt it would ever come to fruition.

“We keep talking about a foundation formula,” Ingalls said. “I’m pretty sure we’re gonna see Bigfoot before we see one of those.”

The bill is silent on the role of tuitioning students to independent schools.

“Because the whole private-school thing kind of took over last year’s conversation, I think people this year tried to not make it about private schools,” Hardy said. School choice will be something that has to be addressed at the local level during merger-committee discussions.

Hardy pointed out that the final version of the bill reflects the recommendations of the
redistricting task force that met over the summer and fall to consider drawing a map with consolidated school districts, only to end up rejecting the proposition in favor of a more measured, democratic approach. Gov. Scott previously said that the task force failed to do its job.

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