Town meeting day

Yesterday was town meeting day in Dummerston. I did not get a lot of sleep Monday night - too much birthday partying? - so I didn't feel too great when we headed off to the meeting at 10am, but I gave it a try. There were no big issues on the warning but something always comes up. This time it was a division of the house over whether to add $2500 more than budgeted to the farm preservation fund. This fund grows over time and is used as seed money in the event that a farmer applies to it to prevent his farm from being bought by a developer. This past year the fund was actually used for the first time and helped a young couple buy a local farm so they could continue it as a farm. This would have been a no- brainer vote in favor of the additional $2500 except that someone got up and pleaded for the low- income residents whose taxes are already a burden. His basic argument was - "hey, you folks who want more money in this fund, just go home and write a check. Don't saddle us poor folks with it." His plea won the day and the amendment to add $2500 was defeated by a 2 to 1 margin in a paper ballot. All that took about 45 minutes. Then we proceeded to vote almost a million $$ to support the town and highway dept in voice votes that took a few seconds! Ah! New England Democracy at its best !

We then heard from our three representatives in the VT legislature, each of whom gave very clear, succinct and interesting summaries of what is happening in their respective committees. Vermont faces a 120 million $ budget shortfall- not unlike many other states. But we are also going to see a major water clean-up bill, the main problem being agricultural run-off into Lake Champlain.

By noon, I was feeling poorly, and Ellen had to leave anyway to go to Northampton to be with the girls. So she brought me home so I could get some sleep and we missed the second half of the meeting which addressed the school budget, which is often more controversial than the town budget. I hope it passed. I had a quiet and restful afternoon and evening, which is what was needed, got a decent night 's sleep last night and feel  better this morning. But I did accomplish one thing - I was able to think about a service I will be leading on March 15th in Bellows Falls and prepared the bulletin. That was good.

Ellen came home from Northampton last night in a snowstorm, but the good old Subaru made it up the hills just fine. Today it is cloudy and relatively warm - above freezing! Tonight, if our director is feeling well again, we 'll be rehearsing Handel's Samson.