Home
Town News & Announcements
Year In Review: 2024 was a Busy Year in Shaftsbury in Various Ways
Posted: December 31, 2024
SHAFTSBURY - From hiring a new town administrator to entering into contract to purchase a building to re-locate the town offices, this has been a busy year.
There was turnover on the Select Board and the introduction of two new boards, with creation of a town Energy Committee and the Community Center Development Committee.
With the March election, there was one major change on the Select Board. Four candidates, two incumbents and two challengers, competed for two open seats on the board. Brad Peacock defeated incumbent Arthur Whitman, who was chair of the board, for a two-year seat. Incumbent Michael Cichanowski defeated challenger Tony D'Onofrio for a three-year board seat
Reorganizing after the election, the Select Board chose member Naomi Miller to be the new chair and member Martha Cornwell to be vice chair, a post previously held by Tony Krulikowski.
Non-elected town staff changed as well.
In late 2023, David Kiernan, who worked for Shaftsbury for 11 years, 10 of them as administrator, announced his intention to leave in January. Having reached retirement age, he wanted more of a part-time position. As it turned out, he worked well into 2024 on a part-time basis until the town brought a new administrator on board.
Before its Monday, May 20, the Select Board held a potluck to welcome the new town administrator, Paula Iken. Before being hired by the Select Board and starting in May, she worked as a professor of English at a community college in Ohio. This is her first job in government, though she has a business degree and has managed hotels and departments of corporations. To support Iken and Town Clerk Marlene Hall, the board in June appointed Jennifer Holley to the full-time, newly created position of Town Operations Coordinator.
A town employee since 2021, Holley had already been working as assistant town clerk, web master and cemetery superintendent. Among other things, she has developed a comprehensive online portal to the town's cemeteries and manages the Zoom component of Select Board meetings.
In April of 2024 a new bookkeeper, Tiffany Mays, was hired to handle the current responsibilities of imputing all accounts payable invoices, preparing warrants and submitting payroll to an outside firm. Starting in July of 2024, payroll was brought in house and is now processed by the bookkeeper, according to the town website. Mays was previously treasurer for Arlington.
New committees were part of the mix, too. In February, the Select Board formed an Energy Committee. It has a two-part purpose. One, "to make ongoing recommendations to the Select Board on matters related to the planning and implementation of policies designed to reduce energy use, to transition to renewable energy sources and production, and to provide the Town with strategies for climate resilience."
Two, "to provide to the citizens of Shaftsbury education, consultation and connections to state and local resources with regard to energy conservation, household renewable energy electric generation systems, renewable- and low-energy heating and cooling systems, and other means for transitioning households away from fossil fuels."
In April, the town created the Community Center Development Committee (CCDC) to help plan for a community center and a town green in the vicinity of Cole Hall. This project took up much of officials' time in 2024 and involved some unexpected twists. On a more routine level in January, the town signed a contract to purchase a home and property behind Cole Hall, site of the town offices. The home has since been torn down. The property adjoins property the town acquired in 2023.
In a twist, rather than rushing to commit several hundred thousand dollars of American Rescue Plan Money on a new community center by the December 2024 deadline, the town found a work-around by retroactively applying the money to COVID-era town payroll expenses. This created a fund balance of unexpended budget money in the general fund that the town could carry forward beyond the end of 2024. Voters will have final say on expenditure of the funds, which total $558,149.
The original community center concept called for upgrading the town offices at historic Cole Hall and building a new community center on the property acquired nearby. Research by the CCDC found the new construction prohibitively expensive, however. In another twist, town officials became interested in a former medical building at 677 Route 7A in south Shaftsbury.
Dr. David E. King, who owns the building, technically a condominium, reluctantly closed the Shaftsbury Medical Associates office In June 2022 after lengthy efforts to recruit a new physician to take over the practice proved unsuccessful. The 4,413-square-foot unit, built in 1978, shares a two-acre lot with the attached dental office. It is set back from Route 7A. There's parking for 24 vehicles in three lots.
Once the town offices are moved to the new site, the plan is to restore Cole Hall into a community center. In presenting its final recommendation to the Select Board, members of the CCDC said that if the town paid the $375,000 asking price for the former medical building and spent $150,000 to renovate it, the square foot cost would be around $120 a square foot. This still would be about half the minimum cost for building new. The town has entered into a contract to purchase the building at the asking price, but voter approval will be needed to complete the deal.
Also during the year:
- The Select Board twice received updates by Zoom from the developers of the controversial proposed 83-acre, 20-megawatt solar project on Holy Smoke Road. The updates came during board meetings in August and October. Early in the year, the Select Board approved a new Solar Screening ordinance and approved a Host Town agreement with Shaftsbury Solar. The developer expected approval from the Vermont Public Utilities Commission by the end of 2024, but a check of the PUC website indicates that the project case is still open.
- At an in-person meeting at Shaftsbury Elementary School with the Vermont Agency of Transportation and contracted engineers on Sept. 30, officials and residents made clear their opposition to detouring traffic onto Route 7A during the replacement of two culverts on Route 7 planned for the summer of 2026. In its original presentation in 2023, VTrans said it would need to completely shut down Route 7 and detour traffic onto Route 7A for two weeks for each project. The updated plans presented at the Sept. 30 meeting call for one week of full closure per culvert. This did not satisfy Shaftsbury officials, as the town will ear the brunt of the detoured traffic.
Compliments of:
The Bennington Banner
Posted/Author: Mark Rondeau
