(Host) Vermont is such a close-knit community that almost every issue that grips one town has echoes in others.
This year, as Steve Delaney reports in the Towns section of our year-end review, Vermonters watched each other grapple with issues from secession to downtown renewal to buying a hydroelectric dam, or not.
(Delaney) In Rockingham voters began the year having agreed, by a comfortable margin, to buy the Bellows Falls hydro-electric dam. But in the spring an opposition group demanded another vote, to the chagrin of Selectboard Chairman Leonard Barnett.
(Barnett) “Why wouldn’t you want tax stability and at some point energy independence? And some day the children and grandchildren of today’s residents will have a tremendous energy source.”
(Delaney) That vision of the future became less appealing as opponents picked away at the complexity of the agreement. And a week later the voters did an about-face and voted No .
But the idea rose from the dead, with yet another petition forcing yet another vote. It was held in August, and it was another, and apparently final, No .
That left Leonard Barnett to speak sadly of what might have been.
(Barnett) “I won’t kid anybody, I’m saddened by it. I’ve heard many quotes out there and metaphors about the little town that could, and I couldn’t help but think, we’re the little town that could, but we didn’t. That’s kind of a sad ending to a really great story. We didn’t do it.”
(Delaney) But across the state, Winooski did it. After six years of effort and occasional traffic chaos, Mayor Clem Bissonette stood out among the beeping construction machines one day late in the year, in the middle of a re-invented downtown Winooski, and let his pride slip out.
(Bissonette) “Back when I took office in ’99, we announced the redevelopment plan. People said, You’re foolish, people don’t want to relocate to Winooski. Well, we proved them wrong. We’ve had businesses, we have all sorts of inquiries about office spaces.”
(Delaney) About a mile away Fletcher Allen Health Care was putting the final touches on its big Renaissance Project.
Former hospital CEO Bill Boettcher went to prison for his part in hiding the true cost of the expansion project from state regulators.
In May an icon of the American road was lost when Vermont’s last Howard Johnson restaurant closed. It had been among the few survivors of a nationwide chain of essentially identical orange-roofed restaurants where the counter was always on the right, the booths on the left, and the tables in the back.
There were hundreds of them across pre-Interstate America.
(Waitress) “Okay what can I get for you? Home fries and toast? Okay, white, wheat, rye, pumpernickel or English muffin?”
(Delaney) It was always about choices at Hojo’s – fried clams or burgers or kids’ plates. And there were 26 flavors of ice cream. And good prices, and clean rest rooms.
Recently though, too many choices involved eating somewhere that didn’t have an orange roof. The building in Springfield was demolished, and the site is now part of a Holiday Inn complex.
On Town Meeting Day, an old Rutland dream moved one step forward. For decades the city has wanted to move the rail yard out of its downtown area. City and town residents alike voted to intensify the ongoing discussions.
Killington tilted what appears to be a secession windmill again.
The property-rich ski resort town is trying to secede and join New Hampshire, because its taxpayers are angry at the tax bills they get under Vermont’s education funding law.
This year the New Hampshire Legislature approved a plan that, if implemented, would figure out how to annex Killington to a state that’s one big river and several towns removed.
But before that can happen, Vermont’s legislature has to approve the secession, and its leaders made it clearer than ever this year that that is not going to happen, no matter what New Hampshire does. State Senator John Campbell represents Windsor County, which lies between Killington and New Hampshire.
(Campbell) “I look to New Hampshire and I’m quite puzzled. Do they have a lot of time on their hands to deal with this when we all should be focusing on more important issues?”
(Delaney) Colchester has 2,300 students in five schools. All five went silent in October, as contract negotiators got stuck in the classic tension between tax rates and teacher compensation.
After ten days, Education Commissioner Richard Cate lost patience with both sides.
(Cate) “The message is clearly: I want you to fix it. I want you to resolve the contract issue. I want you to get the kids back in school. Don’t force me to further explore other options.”
(Delaney) Commissioner Cate took some heat for jumping into the dispute, but a few days later the strike ended. Its effect beyond that one school district was to revive talk about enacting a statewide teachers’ contract. Later in the year there was another teachers strike in Barre.
For VPR News, I’m Steve Delaney.