VPR News covers town meetings statewide, on air and online. Get town by town results of the votes on school and town budgets plus the resolutions on the public bank.
Town Meeting Day Results: School Budgets | Town Budgets | Public Bank Resolutions | Tar Sands Resolutions
Do you have updates? Contact Us.
Bob Kinzel hosted a live two-hour broadcast recapping town meetings statewide:
More coverage:
- Follow VPR News reporters on Twitter and Vermont's town meeting hashtag, #TMDVT.
- Follow the VPR timeline of Town Meeting Day 2014 using Storify [see Editor's Note].
And in case you missed it, here's a helpful primer: "Everything You Need To Know About Town Meeting."
UPDATED 3/5/14 11:23 a.m.
Voters in several of Vermont's larger communities have rejected school budgets, John Dillon reports, sending a message to local school boards and perhaps to Montpelier that the proposed tax rates were too high. Complete school budget results here.
In Montpelier surprise, school budget goes down, 1130 to 1211 #VPRNews
— Peter Hirschfeld (@PeteHirschfeld) March 5, 2014
A public bank resolution passes in most towns that consider it. Steve Zind reports that unofficial results indicate that most communities that took up a non-binding resolution calling on the legislature to establish a public bank approved it.
Unofficially so far, out of approx 20 #VT towns that took up non-binding public bank resolution 13 towns have passed it, 3 did not. #VPRNews
— Steve Zind (@SZvt) March 5, 2014
In Montpelier, one of the most contentious municipal races of the year ended Tuesday night when Montpelier Mayor John Hollar defeated challenger Gwen Hallsmith, as Peter Hirschfeld reports.
Meanwhile, Vernon is poised to continue its Town Meeting for the third night in a row, after slashing the town police's force from the budget Tuesday night and narrowly defeating the town's $4.4 million school budget. Susan Keese reports that at the end of an evening marked by points of order, paper ballots and heavy debate about the future of the town after the departure of Vermont Yankee, voters agreed to meet again for a third installment of town meeting Wednesday night.
And Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger joined Mitch Wertlieb for a discussion Wednesday morning about the results of Burlington's votes, among them an approval of three gun control measures, a green light to fund the rehabilitation of the defunct waterfront Moran Plant, and the rejection of the city's school budget.
Burlington's @MiroBTV: City voters "expect action" from #VT lawmakers on new approved #gunrestrictions: http://t.co/s9nxn6po5n #VPRNews
— Mitch Wertlieb (@mwertlieb) March 5, 2014
UPDATED 3/4/14 8:82 p.m.
Energy issues -- from Lowell wind to tar sands to natural gas pipeline -- focus of many #VT town meetings. #TMDVT #VPRNews
— John Dillon (@JDillonVT) March 5, 2014
In Montpelier, school budget goes down, Hollar wins mayor's race, and Guerlain, Turcotte, Bate take councilor races #VPRNews
— Peter Hirschfeld (@PeteHirschfeld) March 5, 2014
#VPRNews: Burlington school budget fails; all other ballot measures pass. #BTV #VT #TMDVT
— Angela Evancie (@AJEvancie) March 5, 2014
UPDATED 3/4/14 4:45 p.m
Amy Kolb Noyes reports that Wolcott has filled three positions and eliminated one:
Three new School Directors and one new Selectman elected in #WolcottVT. #tmdvt #PublicPost #VPRNews
— Amy Kolb Noyes (@AmyKolbNoyes) March 4, 2014
#WolcottVT eliminated the office of Town Auditor & passed its school budget, after lengthy discussion. #tmdvt #PublicPost #VPRNews
— Amy Kolb Noyes (@AmyKolbNoyes) March 4, 2014
Amy has been following the trend of towns eliminating positions like auditor for Public Post.
UPDATED 3:39 p.m.
Steve Zind reported from Rochester's Monday night meeting that "the most heat was generated by the topic of ambulance service for the town."
In Braintree, Zind observed that "other business" generated the most discussion:
Town plan to cut some trees along roads, brought up under 'other business' longest discussion at Braintree Town Meeting. #VPRNews
— Steve Zind (@SZvt) March 4, 2014
UPDATED 2:10 p.m.
VPR statehouse reporter Pete Hirschfeld is reporting from town meeting in Montpelier, including developments in the heated mayoral race.
City of Montpelier uses Town Meeting Day to submit new court filing in case involving fired city planner Gwen Hallsmith #VPRNews
— Peter Hirschfeld (@PeteHirschfeld) March 4, 2014
UPDATED 3/4/14 1:30 p.m.
Angela Evancie reports that voters in three Addison County town meetings – Cornwall, Shoreham and Monkton – "sent a strong message of opposition to Phase II of the Vermont Gas pipeline."
Monkton voters strongly denounce the Addison Natural Gas Pipeline. #TMDVT #vpro
— Jane Lindholm (@JaneLindholm) March 4, 2014
[I used to be an embedded Storify. See Editor’s Note below.]
EDITOR’S NOTE: The original version of this post contained social media content embedded by the service Storify. Storify has ceased operation: the post has been updated to remove the Storify embed. The content that was embedded via Storify likely still exists on the original platform, e.g. Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, but it’s no longer curated and embedded in this post with Storify.
