Public Hearings On Town Plan

The Norwich Planning Commission will hold hearings on its proposed Town Plan on January 9, 2020, at 6:30 PM and on January 13, 2020, at 6:30PM in the Multipurpose Room of Tracy Hall. Copies of Public Hearing Draft are available here.

Norwich 'Working Group' Fails In Transparency

A Working Group of public officials, formed in November by the Norwich Selectboard, is apparently not giving public notice of its meetings or posting meeting minutes. This failure seemingly violates Vermont's Open Meeting Law.
The group, known as the the Town Facilities Working Group, is to make recommendations to the Selectboard later this month regarding $4 million in improvements to Town buildings to reduce their carbon footprint. The ambitious goal is to have an Article on the ballot at Town Meeting in March. 

At $4 million, the project is likely the largest public works project ever undertaken by the Town. In comparison, the contract to construct the Public Safety Building had a price of nearly $1.3 million.

The Open Meeting Law applies to any "public body." The statute gives that term a broad definition at 1 V.S.A § 310(4):

"Public body" means any board, council, or commission of the State or one or more of its political subdivisions, any board, council, or commission of any agency, authority, or instrumentality of the State or one or more of its political subdivisions, or any committee of any of the foregoing boards, councils, or commissions, except that "public body" does not include councils or similar groups established by the Governor for the sole purpose of advising the Governor with respect to policy.

The Town Facilities Working Group was created by the Selectboard at its November 20th meeting and includes two Selectboard members, three Energy Committee members, two Finance Committee members, and the Town Manager, all elected or appointed public officials.  

How is this not a public body?  Even if arguably not a public body, the better practice, to me at least, is to err in favor of transparency. Openness is fundamentals to good government.

I doubt there's any nefarious motive involved. However, it is important that small town government not get indifferent or careless in its approach to public notice.
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UPDATE. The meeting "notes" for two meetings of the Town Facilities Working Group are now posted on the Norwich website under the Town Manager’s Office section. http://norwich.vt.us/town-managers-office/

HereCast is shutting down

HereCast, the website dedicated to content 'by locals for locals', is going on hiatus at year-end. No return date is set and the website will go dark. This blog posted 427 times on HereCast over a two year period.

In an email to casters (bloggers) on November 29, 2019, the White River Junction, VT startup said:

We started HereCast 6 years ago to help fill a void we saw in our local communities. Your efforts have far exceeded our expectations; however, we’ve fallen short of other goals, so we are shutting down the site while we reassess our future. 

This is big loss for residents of and visitors to the Upper Valley specifically and for hyperlocal coverage in rural communities in general. HereCast's content came from locals who were paid from a pool funded from advertising revenue. The site was popular in the region, "reaching more than half of Upper Valley residents month-in, month-out," said the HereCast website. "HereCast showed that — given the opportunity — people from all walks of life will step up to inform and engage their communities."

Growth was a problem.The company "overestimated how quickly we could expand our readership beyond the Upper Valley. We’re growing, but not quickly enough to support the cost of continuing to develop and maintain our platform."

"Second, we underestimated the hostility of traditional media." As reported elsewhere, the regional newspaper Valley News, based in Lebanon,NH viewed HereCast as a competitor and refused to let company advertise in its paper. In the six year history of the local startup, the only news story that I recall Valley News writing about HereCast was to report its shutdown.

As the Valley News and other newspapers fight to survive in the internet era, it was "naive to think they could risk exploring a different future with us under those circumstances," said HereCast.

See also, Site dedicated to content 'by locals for locals' announces shutdown in the Eagle Times on December 3, 2019.

Comment: Two important items missing from the Selectboard packet

I am going to whine. Two important items are missing from the Selectboard packet for the meeting on Wednesday evening, December 4th.

1. Proposed budget for FYE 2021. Budget discussions kick off on Wednesday, with a presentation by the DPW, followed by "Board Discussion/Possible Action".  No budget numbers are in the Selectboard packet or on the Town's website. The Selectboard had the budget proposal two weeks ago, but the public does not.
2. Town Manager's written report for November. I thought a written report of the Town Manager's activities for the prior month was "expected" at the first Selectboard meeting of the following month. The last report I located was for August, 2019, buried in the Selectboard packet for September 11.  My modest review indicates that since March, written reports were also not in the Selectboard packets for March 13, June 12 or July 10. (My count is six months of nine.) The last Town Manager report on the Town's website is for July 2016. Not a typo ... over three years ago. The public should not be in the dark.

I am disappointed, even though the omissions are very likely oversights due to the press of other business. Yes, the website and packet materials are primarily the responsibility of the the Town Manager. But the Selectboard is the boss. If the website is out of date, if materials do not make it to the packet, or if reports are not being written, that's a shortcoming of the Selectboard as well.
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Posted on HereCast on: 12.04.2019.

Agenda item #7c: Resolution for municipal authority to regulate retail pot sales

On tap for the Selectboard meeting on Wednesday is a resolution sponsored by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT) regarding municipal authority over retail cannabis sales. The Selectboard agenda and packet were released Monday afternoon because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Coming to Vermont?

I'm not sure this is a end-of-the-meeting, rubber stamp type resolution. My quick turn through the internet says the resolution has stirred Board debate at least at Selectboard meetings in Barre, Chester, and Springfield, the occurred before Thanksgiving. The website Vermontijuana labels the VLCT as an anti-cannabis lobbying group.

The retail sale of pot presents a unique situation for Norwich as it is adjacent to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where cannabis is not legal. In addition, the Village Business area includes the Marion Cross School, grades pre-K to 6th.

Legislation to permit the retail sale of marijuana is expected to be proposed in Montpelier in January. The anticipated bill would allow "local municipalities to ban sales by a vote of those present at an annual or special meeting but not by an ordinance," according to the story in the Chester Telegraph. "The bill allows for local cannabis control commissions to handle permitting and local regulations and a 2 percent local option tax collected on sales."

In contrast, the VLCT resolution allows towns to "opt-in" and calls for a 5 percent local tax, with 70% of revenues being retained by the host community of the retail establishment. Towns would also apparently need to opt-in for farmers to grow marijuana ("cultivate, process, manufacture, or sell cannabis"). The remaining 30% goes to other municipalities, "hosting growing or manufacturing marijuana businesses," says the Time Argus report of the VLCT presentation to the Barre Board, although the proportions of the split are not stated. The implications is that is if a town is not a host, it gets nothing.

The Selectboard in Springfield modified the resolution. According to the Eagle Times report:

The Springfield Selectboard objected, however, to two parts of the VLCT provision. In the board’s amended version, the resolution changes the “opt-in” for municipalities to an “opt-out” and removes the language which would distribute 30% of the collected tax revenues to municipalities that don’t host commercial cannabis.

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Originally posted on HereCast on:12.02.2019.