On April 1 the voters of Montgomery, Vermont, rejected two different attempts to derail a long-planned municipal wastewater system. The town of 1,200 has 936 registered voters and 453 or 48.4% of them cast ballots this week on two proposed articles.
The first article, rejected 234 to 217, would have repealed a portion of a 1% local option tax that town voters had previously passed, dedicating those funds to be used to pay back loans and construction costs the town incurred in building a municipal wastewater system.
The second article, rejected 245 to 208, called for allowing some village property owners to opt out of joining the municipal wastewater system.
This vote is significant locally for several reasons. The Montgomery system, like Waitsfield’s pending municipal wastewater system, has been many years in the making. Both systems rely heavily on federal and state grants and loans.
Both towns need these systems to protect river corridors and public health. Both need them to facilitate commercial growth and housing. Both towns and both infrastructure systems faced pushback about growth run rampant and some people expressed concerns about what type of people might join their community if more housing became available.
Here is the irony. Both projects are in line for funding, some of which comes from the state and represents federal ARPA funding which must be used or lost (by the state) or it will be clawed back. The state, rightfully, wants to ensure that all the federal funds allocated to Vermont gets used on projectS it prioritizes – including municipal infrastructure.
Had Montgomery voters passed this week’s articles the town would have forfeited its state Clean Water State Revolving Fund award and Waitsfield would likely have benefitted from those funds being reallocated to the next most shovel-ready project.
That would have been great for our local project, but not great for Montgomery which needs municipal wastewater as much as we do for all the same reasons. This week’s vote in Montgomery also affirms the state’s commitment to providing funding for small town infrastructure and it is a vote for common sense and against NIMBY-ism and fearmongering.
