Local politics
Voter turnout was about 70% here in our neck of the woods yesterday. The reason for that is likely the hotly contested senate and congresional races, the gubernatorial races, and closer to home, the question of merger . . . . Should the “Town of Essex” and the “Village of Essex Junction” merge? Hmmm… Here are a few links for your perusal if you want to know more . . . .
editorial
the sides
results — the Free Press has removed this article b/c it erroneously stated that the town voted the merger down . . . . I guess they’re embarassed by their mistake and don’t want you to read what they said or what people thought when it was supposedly defeated.
Bottom line, we live in the village and all villagers also are residents of the town but “town outside the village” people are not residents of the village. We villagers pay municipal taxes to both. They don’t. It’s confusing. Many people don’t understand why there are two communities, or even that there are two communities. Theoretically we can have someone on their board (mind you I don’t feel like it’s our board!) - but we have tried that and we get defeated every time - they outnumber us! They talk “wanting to cooperate” but they don’t. It has happened again. And again. And again. In the more recent history, the village voted to separate about 6 years ago. Essex said no. So the communities about 2 years ago both gave a message to both the village trustees and the town selectboard that they wanted to merge. Sounded good for a change, like maybe the people had “had enough of the partisan bickering” and the “us” vs. “them.” I heard a lot of “nice words” that spoke of unity and feeling like we’re one and why the arguing and differences etc.
The boards both said “ok, we’ll work together since that’s what you want” and they did. I was proud, though honestly I’m a separatist at heart. If that’s what people want, then so be it. But I saw the town folk (not the select board) finally figure it out. Forget nice words and fuzzy feelings. It’s about the pocketbook. Merging meant their taxes would go up (of course! that’s the point folks, if you merge, the village stops paying twice and the town has to share the village bills and supposedly the village interests!) This is assumed by anyone who understands the current status, which honestly it seems most folks outside the village didn’t previously (and probably still don’t). You can’t merge w/o an affect on the taxes. Any merge proposal that didn’t give tax relief to the village would be absurd.
In any case, the village voted to merge yesterday. And Essex said no.
Back to the drawing board.
