Charlotte Selectboard holds last meeting in current configuration

The selectboard’s meeting on Feb. 24 was a quiet affair. There was a minimum of contentious issues and not much in the way of public comment.

The meeting was preceded by a public informational meeting about the articles voters will be deciding at town meeting. Only one person showed up in person for this hearing.

When the regular meeting started, attendance hovered around 10 people on line and 10 in town hall. The meeting was a bit of a long goodbye. The complexion of the board will have changed when next it meets.

One definite change is that chair Jim Faulkner will be gone. He is not running for reelection, so Lee Krohn is running unopposed for that three-year term.

Incumbent Kelly Devine is facing challenger J.D. Herlihy in the contest for a two-year term on the selectboard. If Herlihy manages to flip that seat, there could be two new faces on the town’s five-person governing body.

The board’s next meeting is Monday, March 10. This meeting, its first since the March 4 election for town offices, will be its annual reorganization meeting when board members vote on the chair and vice-chair, so the next chair definitely will be new.

Vice-chair Frank Tenney may or may not be selected to repeat as vice-chair.

Town moderator and member of the development review board Charlie Russell took advantage of the public comment portion of the selectboard meeting to thank Faulkner for his service to the town.

In reply, Faulkner joked that when he started on the selectboard his hair was brown instead of gray.

Others commented toward the end of the meeting on how hard Faulkner has worked. He always seemed to be hard at work at least 30 minutes before every meeting started. Usually, it has been just him and town administrator Nate Bareham in town hall that early, discussing the agenda and planning for the meeting ahead.

One of the most significant things to happen at the Feb. 24 meeting was the board approved a contract with GreenEdge Energy Solutions of South Burlington to look at the town’s current energy consumption with the possibility of increasing the town’s use of alternative energy systems.

The project is divided into three portions or “milestones.” The first is all the selectboard has approved currently, with the possibility of continuing into the next two phases.

The cost of the first milestone is $4,000 and that won’t come from taxpayer money. A grant will fund the first phase of the project. After this first phase, or milestone, the town can stop the project.

“There will be communication back and forth between the consultant and the selectboard throughout this process,” Bareham said.

The first milestone will be an audit of the town’s current energy consumption and where that energy comes from. It would suggest redesigns that could make the town’s energy use more efficient and renewable.

The work would also study the feasibility of locating solar generating systems on five town properties.

The vote approving the contract was 4-1 with Faulkner casting the lone nay vote.