In the late afternoon of Tuesday’s Town Meeting Day voting, outside the Charlotte Town Hall was seeing a good bit of action with leaving and arriving cars having to dosey doe to get in or out of parking spaces.
As I write this, the Vermont legislature is nearing the end of the session – we hope! Several bills passed both chambers, House and Senate, in the last two weeks and have been sent to the Governor for his signature.
As the Legislature prepared to recess for town meeting week, the focus continued to be on our number one priority: Vermonters and the coronavirus.
In a series of Front Porch Forum posts and emails to The Charlotte News, over a dozen Charlotters expressed their anger that the signs had been taken from their property and noted that removing them could be counterproductive.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Monday is the final public hearing regarding Land Use Regulation amendments that go up for vote this March….
The Community News Service gathered voter vignettes from across the state on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Here’s what they came across in Charlotte.
Charlotters cast their ballots early and enthusiastically this year—out of 3,317 total registered voters in town, 2,920 voted in this year’s November election. Town Clerk Mary Mead and Assistant Town Clerk Sy Koerner weren’t up until all hours of the morning counting, though. Mead said they were finished by 8 p.m.
The Vermont Secretary of State’s Office was in charge of mailing out absentee ballots to every active registered voter in the Town of Charlotte. They started the mailing on Sept. 25 and finished up by Oct. 1.
The Vermont Secretary of State’s office is mailing out absentee ballots to every active voter on our checklist as of Sept. 2. Those ballots were mailed out to Charlotte voters on Sept. 25, and they were mailed out to the address we had on record for you as of Sept. 2.
With the scent of hand sanitizer pungent in the air and voters politely nodding and maintaining distance in close quarters, voting in Charlotte for the 2020 primaries was certainly out of the ordinary.
Town Meeting Results 2020
For almost four hours, with the Selectboard on stage in the Charlotte Central School multi-purpose room and moderator Charles Russell at the helm, a year’s worth of goals and governance were discussed, addressed, and voted upon.
Monday’s Selectboard meeting featured one agenda item: the memorandum of agreement between the Champlain Valley School District and the town of Charlotte for election day security. The topic was debated for nearly an hour among Selectboard members, with Chair Matt Krasnow calling in remotely.
Tuesday’s Meet the Candidates night at the Grange hosted five candidates from the list of nine names on this year’s ballot. Four are running unopposed and one candidate, Matt Krasnow, is the sole candidate who attended who is vying for the only contested race: a three year Selectboard term.
Please consider voting for Krasnow I’m writing to ask for your vote on Town Meeting Day to elect me…
Town Meeting is right around the corner. I have received several phone calls from people who are interested in reserving one of the tables in the hall to display their materials, etc. So, first of all, it is all on a first come first serve basis. We are typically setting up on Monday afternoon and you are welcome to come in and put your name on one of the tables, or even bright and early on Tuesday when the polls open at 7 a.m.
Attendance at the Selectboard meeting ticked up on Feb. 10 for a specific reason; members of the public filtered in for the net metering agreement agenda item. It had been discussed and voted on at the previous meeting and was voted against, 3-2. Following letters to the paper, Front Porch Forum posts, and general community chatter, it was back on the agenda.
There are 13 total races on the ballot this year, and voters have only one contested race to consider. There are 7 positions for which not a single person turned in a petition to run, six positions that have only one candidate running, and seven positions that are blank altogether.
Last spring, there was a controversy in Charlotte. The issue was over a request for proposals made by the Selectboard for tree removal. The parties involved made their dissatisfaction with the process known through Front Porch Forum posts, there was general uproar, and the Selectboard scheduled a special May 1 meeting to address the situation.
Charlotte voters approved the fiscal year 2020 town budget on April 9 by Australian ballot. The vote, held in the multi-purpose room at Charlotte Central School, was held the mandatory 30 days after the budget was warned on Town Meeting Day.