ISLAND POND — Voters here Tuesday gave overwhelming approval to the sale of the John H. Boylan Airport as the final step in getting a pellet plant up and running in the former Ethan Allen furniture factory.
With 326 voters supporting the sale out of 400 voting, the town gave the Legislature all the public backing it needs to approve the airport sale.
The vote also confirms developer Fran Azur’s staunchly held opinion that townspeople would support his project even if it meant giving up an airport named after a hometown state senator.
“This was not really about getting rid of the airport,” said Selectman Deak Worth Tuesday night. “Everybody wants jobs.”
The vote is also a strong endorsement of Senator Vince Illuzzi’s efforts to get a bill through the Legislature this session to sell the airport to Mr. Azur and bring the plant on line by next year.
“This opportunity doesn’t come around very often,” said Senator Illuzzi, after hearing the results of what had started out as a highly controversial issue brought on by the developer’s insistence that no other site but the airport would do to build a log yard to feed the pellet plant.
The senator attended Town Meeting here last night, but most people already appeared to have their minds made up on how they would vote Tuesday.
All Mr. Illuzzi could do was to reiterate the developer’s promise that if the town voted the sale down, he would take the project elsewhere.
Senator Illuzzi called the vote the “first step in a long journey,” saying that he would have to start working on the details that would win legislative approval for the sale.
In town office races decided by Australian ballot, Melinda Gervais beat Chris Lafountain for a seat on the select board by a margin of 240 to 166 votes.
Incumbent Muriel Webb bested Jennifer Hanlon for tax collector, with 306 votes to 99.
At the Town Meeting, held Monday night, voters twice rejected proposals to place both the school budget and the town budget on Australian ballot. A third request to vote by Australian ballot on any appropriation of $1,000 or more was likewise rejected.
The issue first came up at the annual school meeting that preceded the Town Meeting.
It also came after voters narrowly approved a budget that, at $1,828,824, came in under a few thousand dollars from what was spent last year.
Maurice Barnes, who led the call for a paper ballot on the school budget vote, argued in favor of using the Australian ballot when the school directors present their budget to the voters next year.
“This way everyone has a fair chance to vote on it,” he said, noting that both the towns of Lyndon and St. Johnsbury had made the switch.
Jan Clark supported him, saying that a vote on Town Meeting discriminated against the elderly, soldiers, and people who couldn’t get away from work to attend the evening meeting. A vote by Australian ballot, she added, would also allow people to vote by absentee ballot.
But Charlie Pronto, recalling his days in office as Newport’s mayor, opposed the switch.
“It would eliminate Town Meeting, and that’s what towns in Vermont are all about,” he said.
Before Newport went to Australian ballot, he recalled that Town Meeting used to attract as many as 400 people. But a year after the switch, at an information meeting prior to the Australian ballot vote the next day, only six people showed up. And four of them, he said, may have been members of the press.
On a show of hands after a voice vote proved indecisive, the article to put the school budget on Australian ballot was defeated by a 49 to 35 margin.
There are roughly 900 voters on the town’s checklist. And when the issue came up during Town Meeting, held in the second half of the evening, the results were the same, although a new twist came out of the discussion.
Ben Applegate suggested that a compromise might be worked out whereby people unable to attend the meeting might vote by absentee ballot on money issues, with the results added to the votes taken on the floor at Town Meeting.
At the very least, he added, other options should be considered.
The article to replace the traditional town meeting by Australian ballot failed on a voice vote.
There was no explanation of how the Opera Block here became the Town Hall, but nearly everyone agreed that it was worth spending $50,000 for improvements, even if the scope and extent of improvements won’t be known until a future date.
Those unusual circumstances arose because the building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is eligible for several grants. Just how much is still unknown, but the town needed to show it was committed to spending its own money in order to receive up to $275,000 in grant funds.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to take care of this great old building,” Administrative Assistant Joel Cope said, speaking of a three-story edifice that was built in 1889 and presently houses the town hall and basketball court on the first floor, and town offices on the second.
Residents were told that at a minimum the window casings on the third floor were rotted and leaking and needed to be replaced.
“They’re in sad shape,” Mr. Cope said, adding that their replacement alone would save the town $5,000 in heating costs.
Federal stimulus money would help pay for the job. But the real prize, said Mr. Cope, were grants through the Preservation Trust of Vermont that would restore the exterior of the building by replacing the vinyl clapboards with cedar ones. Along with new siding would come new sheathing where needed, and insulation that could save as much as another $5,000 in heating costs.
The catch is that once the cedar clapboards were on they would have to be maintained. Moreover, a condition of the grant would prohibit the town from replacing the cedar with vinyl at some point down the road.
“I’d like to see the improvement,” said Sonny Weatherstone, “but the upkeep of those cedar clapboards is going to cost us some money.”
The selectmen and Mr. Cope were clearly willing to allow the town to hedge its bet. Mr. Cope was willing to attach an amendment to the $50,000 request that said spending the money would be contingent upon the town receiving the grants.
But the townspeople saw no need for an amendment. And they easily approved the request on a voice vote.
Brighton residents also approved a $35,000 sewer appropriation to “keep the crap flowing” at the Dale Avenue ejector station.
Sewer Commissioner Tom Timpson said federal stimulus money would pay for 50 percent of the project’s costs, providing the job was done this year.
There was no spirited debate on the selectmen’s budget of $1,156,917 — up from last year’s spending of $971, 228. The budget passed.
In one of the lighter moments of the meeting, someone from the floor noted that the town’s long-term debt had jumped from $65,000 to $98,000.
And in the absence of any brief explanation, Mr. Pronto thought he knew the answer.
“You can say Teddy,” he said, referring to the revenues in traffic tickets that have been lost since Constable Miller was voted out of office.
