Work begins on Spear Street

The Charlotte Selectboard announced that repairs on Spear Street, impassable since July’s flooding, would begin on Dec. 3.

“We have the contractors all ready to go,” chair Jim Faulkner said the night before.

Following an executive session, the board approved a pair of easement agreements between the town and private landowners to facilitate the work. The job will make use of time-limited funding from the Federal Highway Emergency Relief Program.

“And now we have to push to get this finished by April 6,” Faulkner added. “If we do that, it won’t cost the town a penny.”

Two new 10-foot culverts will replace the single culvert that Mud Hollow Brook washed away amid the remnants of Hurricane Beryl.

Possible skating-rink delay

A faulty electrical box may push back the start of the ice-skating season in Charlotte. The public rink at Charlotte Central School will not open until repairs have taken place.

Citing safety and liability concerns, the selectboard approved the precautionary closure and a request for bids from electricians. The electrical box serves the pump that moves water into the rink.

Volunteer Bill Fraser-Harris had planned to begin flooding the rink this upcoming weekend. He called the system “operational,” but he recounted observing sparks upon turning on the power and noted that “the pump relay made some very disconcerting noises.”

The selectboard reviewed an email from a local electrician, Steve Spadaccini, who had looked at the system earlier this year. He recommended a multi-step process for bringing it up to code, which would cost $5,000 by his estimation.

“What is in place is a mess,” Spadaccini wrote.

The request for bids will close on Dec. 16, the date of the next selectboard meeting. With any luck, a speedy completion will prevent Charlotters from missing out on many good skating days.

“It’s usually too warm in December,” Faulkner said. “And January comes around — by then, we may have it all set.”

Town planner needs

Town planner Larry Lewack retired at the beginning of December, and Charlotte officials are still figuring out how to go about replacing him. They haven’t yet advertised the position or interviewed any candidates.

Instead, they have considered alternative models for professional planning services. Last month, a form of regionalization — reminiscent of the contracts under which large municipalities often provide police and fire services for small ones — struck the selectboard as the best option. With a “shared services agreement,” the town of Shelburne’s planning & zoning office would have overseen the writing of Charlotte’s town plan, alongside related work, for a fee.

“We had an agreement a week ago with Shelburne, and they backed out at the last minute,” selectboard member Kelly Devine said. “Which is unfortunate, because I thought it was a really great solution.”

Now, the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission appears likely to fill in on a temporary basis. As one of its dues-paying member municipalities, Charlotte already receives roughly 35 hours per year of technical assistance, according to Faulkner. For an additional fee, the commission could add “about eight to 16 hours a week” of remote planning work through the end of June, though Faulkner hoped that the stopgap solution wouldn’t have to last that long.

“I think we should get out there and start to advertise right off the bat for a town planner,” he said. “I mean, like, almost tomorrow.”

But Devine pushed back, voicing concerns related to upcoming negotiations between the town and its new municipal employee union.

“When you bring on a full-time employee, and it’s a union position, you don’t have a lot of flexibility,” she said. “You have to fire for cause, so we better be really sure on what we’re doing before we’re adding people into those positions.”

Devine floated the possibility of turning the job into a “gig work” role, whereby the town would contract retired planners for services as needed.

“My initial thought was to try to head in that direction before advertising the position,” she said. “I don’t see, based on the workload and production that was coming out of the planning office, the necessary need for a full-time town planner.”

Charlie Pughe, the chair of Charlotte’s volunteer planning commission, expressed a willingness to work temporarily with the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, but he advocated for prompt action on a permanent solution.

“This has been on the table for four or five months now that we’ve known this is happening, and we haven’t done anything yet. And here we are now, and Larry’s gone,” Pughe said. “So, we need to get this done.”