TROY — It took five hours, which included a delicious chicken and biscuit dinner prepared and served up by the excellent cooks at the school hot lunch program, but the 100 or so townspeople got business done, as usual.

State Senator Bobby Starr has been the moderator in Troy for more years than either he or anyone else wants to remember, and it took about a mintue, after the meeting was opened with the Pledge of Allegiance, to put him right back to work.

The next real item of business was to elect all officers required by law.  But when Mr. Starr started off with Terri Medley for the town clerk’s position, she quickly told him she was on the first year of her first three-year term and didn’t plan to go through that again until 2013.  When everyone stopped laughing, they got down to business.

Mark Sanville was elected for one year to help fill out the remaining two years of Dexter Randall’s term, and the voters put him right back in for the second year.

Nathan Deslandes was up for a second term of three years as selectman, but he decided not to run again, and Robert Langlands was quickly elected to take his place.

All other officers up for re-election were returned to office.

The late Rollie Denton had served Troy as the town grand juror for many years, and during a somber but quick action, Bob Bishop was elected to the position.

Articles five and six of the warning took up the question of how the delinquent taxes would be collected and that caused lots of confusion as well as debate.  After much dicussion, it was decided that, to save the town some money, the town treasurer and clerk, as well as tax collector, would also serve as the delinquent tax collector.  The town charges the maximum 8 percent delinquent fee, so it was also decided that the town clerk will receive one-half of that for her services, with the other half going to the town coffers.

The moderator asked for a round of applause for the many years of service that former delinquent tax collector Donna Labbee had given to the town of Troy.

Article seven asked for transportation help for students living in Troy but going to other schools.  This amount was $250 per student and currently there are only ten students in this category, but after much discussion the voters passed over the request, which effectively killed it.

The voters also quickly passed the request for $10,000 to complete expansion of the town vault, although they had some fun with the fact that the request said fault instead of vault.

Voters also exempted both the fire department and Masonic Union #16 from property tax for another five years.  There was a bit of discussion on the Masonic Hall, but one member of the crowd said that it sounded like an assault on the organization, adding that the Masons do good work right in Troy and they should be exempt.  The voters agreed and passed the request.

They went on to pass an appropriation of $180,102 for the general fund budget; $384,154 for the road budget; and $2,375,790 for the school budget.  This budget caused a bit of discussion, but it passed.

When they returned from lunch, the voters decided, again after much discussion, that the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department would get the same amount of money they asked for last year.  They had asked for $10,870 which is about 5 percent over last year.

With little discussion or fanfare, most requests for appropriations were approved.  Voters gave the Missisquoi Valley Ambulance Service $18,000 although they had asked for $23,460.  Voters told them to bring in an audit of their operation and to look into other ideas for raising money to pay for bills not paid by people using the service.