The Duxbury Select Board meeting on February 8 was so quintessentially Vermont. At the meeting, select board members released new information about the board’s pre-Town Meeting Day informational meeting, appointed a new member to the town’s development review board (DRB), and said “tough luck” to Duxbury residents who’ve lost their mailboxes.
INFORMATIONAL MEETING
Duxbury will hold its pre-Town Meeting meeting on February 26 at 6 p.m. This informational meeting will take place over Zoom, but the Duxbury Select Board is also opening the Crossett Brook Middle School gym to those who want to attend the informational meeting in person.
Thus, Duxbury residents who show up to the meeting in person are expected to abide by the following guidelines: “For anyone who is thinking about coming to the meeting, you will have to do a screening and have your temperature checked. You’ll have to have your mask on and have to keep your 6-foot distance,” said select board member Mari Pratt.
Additionally, attendees are expected to arrive 15 minutes early to complete the screening. “If the meeting starts at 6, you want to arrive in time to do the verbal screening,” said select board chair Kevin Garcia.
NEW DRB MEMBER
On February 8, the board also appointed Duxbury resident Tim Marcaeu to the DRB, a committee responsible for overseeing infrastructural development requests in the town of Duxbury.
At the meeting, Pratt read Marcaeu’s letter of intent to the board. “I am interested in joining the DRB for several reasons,” Marcaeu started. “One, I have lived in Duxbury for 13 years and having lived in many small Vermont towns and communities my entire life, I know one thing for sure: Very few community members step up to serve. It’s a necessity in a small town. Also, I am a professional. I own my own business. I’m a quick study, and I believe I can meet the time commitment of the DRB to encourage sustainable and responsible growth and development of the DRB as enforced by the guidelines set forth in the town zoning ordinance.”
After reading his letter, select board members voted unanimously to appoint Marcaeu to the DRB.
MAILBOXES
Finally, the board addressed concerns about damages to mailboxes in the town.
“The town maintenance policy states that the town cannot be held responsible for damages to mailboxes,” said Garcia. “I know it seems harsh but if your mailbox falls prey to the running of the plow or the overburden of snow, it is not the town’s responsibility to replace your mailbox.”
Pratt mentioned that residents concerned about losing their mailbox to a town snowplow can move their mailboxes out of the town right of way. To this, town clerk Maureen Harvey argued that if residents move their mailboxes, “the postman may never reach it.”
What followed was an impassioned speech from Garcia on the inevitable destruction of rural roadside mailboxes. “Ninety-nine percent of mailboxes are in the town right of way. Let’s say you have a heavy snow. The plow truck may not even touch your mailbox. But 2,000 pounds of snow pushed up against it, that mailbox is gonna fail,” Garcia started.
“I’m sorry. If that town wants to open pandora’s box and start reimbursing everyone that lost a mailbox, God love ‘em. I lost my mailbox four times before I hung it off a tree, and believe it or not, an ex-road foreman managed to hit it. Hit my mailbox structure that hangs it 18 feet in the air. Hit it with his excavator. It happens. I’m sorry. it’s an inconvenience, but it’s part of living in rural Vermont.”
