Vermont

Vermont sees community engagement in politics through annual 'Town Meetings'

Published

2 years ago

March 18, 2024

Vermont sees community engagement in politics through annual 'Town Meetings'

In some Vermont towns, residents hold an annual meeting to discuss and vote on local issues.
Town Meeting is a tradition that, in Vermont, dates back more than 250 years, to before the founding of the republic.
Last year, residents of neighboring Morristown voted to switch to a secret ballot system, ending their town meeting tradition.

Julie wants more donations to the food pantry. Kipp is busy knitting a sweater. Shorty is ready to ask: Why is so much being spent on a truck? The coffee, fresh-baked bread and donuts have been laid out. Eighty-seven voters have squeezed into the Elmore Town Hall.

Town Meeting is about to begin. Moderator Jon Gailmor stands up.

“Good morning, everyone, and welcome to democracy,” he says. “This is the real thing, and we should all be proud that we’re doing this.”

‘VERMONT DELIVERED ON ALL FRONTS’: RESIDENTS AND BUSINESS OWNERS REVEAL WHY PEOPLE ARE FLOCKING TO THE STATE

Across the United States, people are disgusted with politics. Many feel powerless and alienated from their representatives at every level — and especially from those in Washington. The tone long ago became nasty, and many feel forced to pick a side and view those on the other side as adversaries.

Town Clerk Sandra Lacasse places a sign outside the town office on March 5, 2024, when the town holds its annual Town Meeting in Elmore, Vermont. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

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 it’s 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. They’ve 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.

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. “I’ve always said it’s a live, living, breathing creature. I don’t own it; she owns me,” says Kathy Miller, 63, a longtime former owner who still helps out at the store. People would come in not only to buy milk and pick up the mail, Miller recalls, but to use the fax machine, find a plumber or just to swap gossip.

After joining the state grocers’ association in the 1980s, Miller 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.

Miller describes herself as a Republican who hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid. But at Town Meeting, she says, political differences don’t mean a thing.

“There’s no animosity,” she says. “People can talk about things. You shake hands with your neighbor when you leave.”

At Town Meeting, she’s successful in pushing for an increase to the town’s library funding from $1,000 per year to $3,000.

Gailmor, 75, is a singer-songwriter who describes himself as an independent voter. He first moved to Elmore in 1980 and says he found the town meeting tradition nothing short of miraculous. It wasn’t some politician spouting off but real people taking part. He was so inspired that he even wrote a song about it.

“Greet the old town folks, hear the gossip and the jokes, dip a donut in a good strong cup of Joe,” Gailmor sings. “Find your favorite chair, plant your buttocks there — we’re getting down to business, don’t you know.”

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 late wife, Cathy Murphy, when she was speaking out against nuclear weapons at an Elmore Town Meeting in the 1980s.

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.

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

But 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.

Elmore’s 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.

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

VERMONT RESIDENT MAKES ‘UNSETTLING’ DISCOVERIES ON PROPERTY AS MIGRANT CRISIS HITS NORTHERN BORDER

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. “We 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,” Shorty Towne tells the crowd.

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

Gailmor commends townsfolk for holding a 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.

“Lunch is cold,” Gailmor says. “But it will be in the church.”

Source link

Vermont

Some Vermont doctors embrace the new ‘direct primary care’ model

Published

7 hours ago

April 1, 2026

Press Room

Some Vermont doctors embrace the new ‘direct primary care’ model

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The open house for a new medical office in Williston looked ordinary enough.

On a recent Friday evening, a smattering of prospective patients grazed on fruit and healthy snacks, peeked at the exam room, and chatted with the owner and staff members of Blue Spruce Health.

But the flyer announcing the event contained clues that this wasn’t your typical doctor’s office. It’s one of a growing number of practices in Vermont that deliver medical care through a relatively new model known as direct primary care.

Though similar in concept to a more commonly known version called “concierge medicine,” direct primary care touts cheaper care — fees typically top out at $200 a month — allowing doctors to see patients who are from a range of income levels rather than just high earners. It’s sometimes referred to as “blue-collar concierge.”

Darren Perron spoke with Seven Days’ Alison Novak, who reported on the new health care model in this week’s edition.

Source link

Vermont

Applications open for money to restore old Vermont barns

Published

19 hours ago

April 1, 2026

Press Room

Applications open for money to restore old Vermont barns

Dave DeMille
| Burlington Free Press

Vermont’s barn preservation effort is getting a fresh coat of energy as the state opens applications for the 2026 Vermont Barn Painting Project.

The initiative offers reimbursement to farm families for painting and minor repairs that help maintain historic barns, according to a community announcement. Funding comes from the A. Pizzagalli Family Farm Fund, and ten barns will be selected for support this year.

The announcement notes that the program continues a long-running effort supported by Angelo Pizzagalli and the family fund. The fund has been involved in barn restoration work for years, evolving into the microgrant format now being used to help farm families manage the upkeep of large, aging structures.

Applications are open through April 30 and will be reviewed as they arrive, according to the announcement. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

Interested barn owners may apply online or email Scott Waterman at Scott.Waterman@vermont.gov for more information.

This story was created by Dave DeMille, ddemille@gannett.com, with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.

Source link

Vermont

Vermont lawmakers plan for the death of the penny – VTDigger

Published

1 day ago

March 31, 2026

Press Room

Vermont lawmakers plan for the death of the penny – VTDigger

A person holds a giant penny at a mock funeral for the coin, which was discontinued in 2025, in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

What good is a penny at this point? Penny candy is a thing of the past, and a modern-day penny-pincher wouldn’t get very far if this were their get-rich strategy.

(This newsletter, though, costs you less than a penny. Chip in if you can.)

U.S. mints no longer make pennies, a decision that saves taxpayers an estimated $56 million annually. When the U.S. Treasury Department announced the country would stop minting them, it marked the end of an era — sorta.

Though those pesky copper-colored coins remain in circulation, some businesses, both in Vermont and nationwide, have begun experiencing penny shortages.

Enter H.837. The bill outlines a plan that could allow retailers to phase out the penny by rounding up or down cash transactions to the nearest nickel.

Other states, including Arizona and Indiana, have passed rounding legislation, and a handful of others are considering it. As written, Vermont’s bill wouldn’t require rounding, a similar approach favored in other jurisdictions.

Some Vermont businesses have already adopted rounding. But lobbyists for Vermont businesses say some of their members fear the practice — without explicit state blessing — could open a business up to a lawsuit over alleged unfair and deceptive practices.

Worried or not, rounding will likely become more necessary as pennies get harder to find, Maggie Lenz, a lobbyist for the Vermont Retail and Grocers Association, told the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee Tuesday. She encouraged the state to create a rounding framework, but discouraged lawmakers from making such a program mandatory.

Rep. Tony Micklus, R-Milton, agreed that rounding should be optional, but said the state should mandate a specific rounding framework for the businesses that choose to round.

H.837’s approach, which would round down totals ending in 1,2,6 and 7 cents, and round up totals ending in 3, 4, 8 and 9 cents, would seem to be the fairest to consumers and businesses, those who testified agreed.

But the change is likely not net neutral. Zachary Tomanelli, a consumer protection advocate for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, cited a Federal Reserve study that indicated rounding could cost consumers $6 million annually nationwide. That’s because businesses price goods in ways that tend to lead to rounding up.

He called the cost modest and said he generally supported the bill.

Despite H.837 not making it past the crossover deadlines, there’s still hope that pennies might make it into Vermont’s currency cemetery. Rep. Michael Marcotte, R-Coventry, the commerce committee’s chair, said his committee could stick the rounding legislation in the Senate’s economic development bill.

That said, you might not want to ditch your pennies quite yet.

In the know

Here are some numbers for you: Between 2012 and 2022, Vermont’s primary care workforce declined by 13%. In that same time period, the specialist workforce grew by 23%. That’s according to testimony Jessa Barnard, with the Vermont Medical Society, gave to lawmakers in the House Health Care Committee Tuesday. She said the numbers are reflective of a trend in medicine nationwide, attributed to the fact that primary care docs often make less but pay the same high cost for medical school as their peers in more specialized roles.

In Vermont, Barnard said that this widening gap is leading to a particularly acute shortage. According to a report her organization put out in 2022, the state needs 115 primary care providers to meet the national benchmark for our population size. That figure includes OBGYNs, pediatricians and family medicine docs. By 2030, as our state’s population grows even older, the Vermont Medical Society expects the state to need 370 more primary care physicians to meet the national benchmark.

— Olivia Gieger

Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, spoke with members of the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee Tuesday afternoon about S.327, an economic development bill that supports a number of public resources for business owners across the state.

The bill has had a tough go of it so far.

Clarkson handed out copies of what she referred to as “the actual bill,” which meant the package voted out by her own Senate Economic Development Committee before being “pretty much fully gutted” on its way through the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In a tight budget year, she said, this bill’s focus was on “supporting what works really well” for Vermont businesses. For Clarkson, that means continuing to invest in the initiatives like the Vermont Economic Growth Incentive program, a set of grants to help businesses expand in the state, which is scheduled to end in January. The Senate, she pointed out, has voted to extend the program for several years in a row, most recently through S.327.

“I am charging the House with doing the same thing,” she said.

Clarkson is also in favor of deepening the state’s relationships with outside investors by funding state delegates abroad. Vermont, she argued, should have more well-placed representation in areas like Québec — which this bill would provide for — and in the future Taiwan, which recently pledged to invest heavily in U.S. tech industries.

“We need somebody whose hand is up saying ‘yes, over here!’” Clarkson said.

House commerce members met informally with a delegation from Taipei later Tuesday.

— Theo Wells-Spackman

On the move

The Senate advanced a bill Tuesday that would allow parents in Essex County to pay tuition to send pre-K students to New Hampshire schools.

In Vermont’s most rural county, families struggle to access pre-K programs, at least on this side of the border.

But S.214, legislation originally proposed by Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden Southeast, would allow for a handful of families near the New Hampshire border in Essex County to tuition their pre-K-aged children to New Hampshire schools, Sen. Steve Heffernan, R-Addison, said on the Senate floor.

Kindergarten through grade 12 are already able to tuition to New Hampshire schools.

The Senate will need to vote on the bill once more before sending it to the House.

— Corey McDonald

Source link