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July 27, 2017 • The Essex Reporter • 1
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{ Thursday, July 27, 2017 }
Teachers, board declare impasse Support staff negotiations proceed, teachers await mediation
By COLIN FLANDERS Essex Westford School District teachers are working off a temporary contract amid a stalemate over salary and health benefits while school board and union reps await more information on the legislature’s health care deal. The two sides are now seeking mediation, where they hope to reach a settlement
in lieu of entering the fact-finding phase, where they would be required to present their offers to a neutral party who would issue a non-binding report. “There just isn’t enough information to move further right now,” EWSD board and negotiations committee member Kim Gleason said. “We’re all at a place where we’re needing more information.” They’re not alone: Twenty-six of Ver-
mont’s 60 supervisory unions have already declared impasse, said Nicole Mace, executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association. Mace said while it’s a unique year for negotiations — every district and supervisory union needed to negotiate a new contract — the rate of impasse is unusually high. She blamed a “perfect storm of complicated issues,” many of which are affect-
ing EWSD. That includes navigating a complex legislative tussle over health care and remedying differences in two former contracts. In January, local union reps described those as “too many to list.” “No year will be as hard as this year,” Gleason said. Most notably, EWSD’s former contracts See IMPASSE, page 4
Act 250 stymies 160-acre donation By COLIN FLANDERS
Fast & Furious
PHOTO BY MICHAELA HALNON
Reporter Kaylee Sullivan tries on a pair of drunk goggles during the Ford Motor Company's Driving Skills for Life course on July 19. Below, she whips around a turn in a shiny red Mustang.
By KAyLEE SULLIVAN
M
(somewhat)
y mom always taught me not to drink and drive. Texting behind the wheel wasn’t an option either. Or spinning out in a Mustang, for that matter. Being the dutiful daughter I am, I’ve always listened. Up until now. With the car in gear, I slowly inched forward. The array of orange traffic cones appeared yellow now, and multiplied. I felt nauseas and dizzy, thanks to the drunk goggles I’d just strapped to my head. “You got it,” my co-worker prodded from the back seat, simultaneously chuckling at my enlarged four eyes — something she made sure to chronicle on camera. In the name of journalism, I’d decided to enter the Ford Motor Company’s Driving Skills for Life course, which aimed to showcase first-hand the dangers of distracted and drunken driving. A known speed demon in the newsroom, I immediately jumped on the story when the press release came through. But here, now, I was nervous. My first task was to text the Pledge of Allegiance. My coworkers back at the office were a bit confused to receive my last few lines: “One nation under God individual one mayor.”
Just a short cry from the original, really. According to my instructor, Todd Wittman of Arizona, student drivers are usually assigned lengthier subjects to type considering teens’ growing texting speed. At 23, I’d apparently aged out of the “kids these days” age bracket. Another sign of my aging emerged: I missed a stop sign earlier in the day as Wittman listed off dos and
don’ts of the mostly open course, but he brushed it off as a beginner blooper instead of my aging eyesight. The second course aimed to test my reaction time. A single lane led into three coned-off routes with traffic lights to test my ability to quickly switch lanes in an emergency. Wittman took me through the route once before I plopped into the driver’s seat, my nausea still paired with nervousness. It was time to floor it. See VROOM, page 3
An environmental commission’s denial of Act 250 permits for an Essex subdivision is jeopardizing a local developer’s 160-acre donation to the town. The Unsworth family, who owns the land near Indian Brook Park, offered the donation after its initial Act 250 denial in 2016. The proposed transfer was part of the family’s reconfigured layout for an Indian Brook Road 10-lot subdivision that would include four homes. They hoped the land transfer would allay the Act 250 commission’s concerns over impacts to prime agricultural soils. Though his family, operating under Indian Brook Properties LLP, had already received all necessary local approvals and most of the required state permits, James Unsworth said the process “quickly evolved into a nightmare.” “It’s very much feeling like no good deed goes unpunished,” he said. “The state is fighting us with a ferocity that isn’t justified.” Act 250, Vermont’s land use and development law enacted in 1970, provides a quasi-judicial process for reviewing and managing impacts from subdivisions and developments. Nine commissions around the state evaluate projects based on 10 criteria. Acting as an agent for his family, Unsworth said he began working with Lamoureux & Dickinson engineers on the subdivision about three years ago with the hope of creating a proposal that avoided Act 250. Developers can subdivide up to 10 lots in one environmental district in five years before needing Act 250 review. But because Indian Brook Properties LLP had already received permits for a four-lot project in South Burlington – the same district – Act 250 was triggered, the commission’s decision reads. The family has been mired in appeals ever since. At the crux of the matter is disagreement over how to mitigate the impacted soil. The commission asserts the subdivision will reduce the “agricultural potential” of about seven acres that should instead be conserved. See ACT 250, page 10
Fund balance policy questions overshadow grand list growth By COLIN FLANDERS A surging grand list presented to the Essex Selectboard last week was eclipsed by debate over how much surplus the town should retain. Members set the fiscal year 2018 tax rate at $.4997 for village residents and $.5108 for town residents based on a 2.47 percent grand list increase, nearly double Town Meeting Day projections.
Town assessor Randy Viens said a few large building projects that wrapped up this year after being partially assessed last year, like Spring Village and the Green Meadow Apartments, contributed to the growth. For the owner of an average $280,000 home, taxes will increase by about $30. The full impact on village residents, who also pay taxes into the town, aren’t final until the trustees approve their own tax rate. They
planned to do so Tuesday, after The Reporter’s deadline. Though the town’s rate was about $13 less than expected, it didn’t earn unanimous approval. Selectman Andy Watts, the lone dissenter in the 4-1 vote, challenged the board’s plan for its money left over after all expenses are paid, known as the fund balance. In FY18, a $126,000 See FUND BALANCE, page 4
PHOTO BY JOHN CHURCHMAN
Pigs flew during Farm to Ballet's third season at Moonrise Farm on July 15 in Essex. Read more about the performance and ballet troupe on page 10.