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Burlington to vote on police oversight. Burlington, Barre to vote on bond
By Paul Bean
In an off-year election with no statewide races, Vermont’s November 4 ballot focuses on local matters, municipal bonds, and a handful of propositions across towns and districts, including a $149 million proposal to build a new career center in Graniteville and a Charter Change in Burlington seeking police department transparency.
The big standout question in Washington County is the Central Vermont Career Center bond, a $149 million proposal to build Vermont’s first standalone technical education facility. The bond vote will be across 18 Washington County towns including Montpelier, Waitsfield, Barre City and Barre Town. Northfield and Woodbury are not included in this vote nor the district. You can read the full list of towns here.
The bond would increase property taxes across CVCC’s 18 member towns by an average of $291.78 annually, based on a $300,000 home value over 30 years. Tax increases vary by town: Cabot would see the lowest at $99 per year, while East Montpelier would face the highest at $420. Montpelier, Barre City, and Berlin would see increases of $365, $373, and $384, respectively.
The new center would expand CVCC’s construction trades, electrical, plumbing, and heating programs, with potential additions like business, cybersecurity & IT, diesel mechanics, digital media arts, and human and natural resources programs.
It would also introduce career pathways for ninth and tenth graders in design, construction, manufacturing, and health and natural sciences, offering early safety training and industry credentials. The CVCC website has a virtual tour of the proposed site you can view here.
If approved, the facility would open in 2029 to make way for growing student interest in trade careers and address regional workforce needs in high-demand fields. The facility would provide full-day programming to 500 students in the Central Vermont area.
Burlington:
Burlington voters will decide on a revenue bond for the Burlington Electric Department to fund Net Zero Energy and grid reliability projects.
This bond, paid through electricity rates rather than property taxes, aims to limit rate increases to 2% in FY26 compared to over 12% without it. The bond will add 200 new EV charging ports (including 47 fast chargers) using matching funds for Vermont’s first $4.891 million federal grant, add 12 electric vehicles to BED’s fleet (including a second all-electric bucket truck), upgrade systems for dynamic rates to lower peak usage and costs, and invest in renewable plants like relicensing Winooski One Hydroelectric Facility.
The second ballot item is a Charter Change regarding community oversight of the Burlington Police Department seeking to codify transparency practices, giving the Police Commission the power to audit the department, adopt rules, and create an independent 3-5 member panel to make final discipline decisions in cases of disagreement between the Chief and a supermajority of the Commission. The Burlington City website says “the charter change also allows the City Council to delegate authority to the commission to audit and monitor the police department and to adopt rules and regulations for the department. Importantly, the charter change also ensures to the commission is appropriated funding required to do its work and that the composition of the commission reflects the diversity of our City.”
Barre City:
The city of Barre will vote on two articles on November 4th.
Article I is a $2.4 Million Infrastructure Bond for Stevens Branch Apartments This bond allocates $2.4 million to support flood-resilient infrastructure for the Stevens Branch Apartments, a 31-unit affordable housing project developed by Downstreet Housing in downtown Barre City.
By attracting new residents to the area, the development aims to enhance local vibrancy, benefiting nearby downtown shops, restaurants, and schools. Improvements include expanded public parking, more green space, and West Street repaving, all financed via Tax Increment Finance (TIF) District funds from rising downtown property values, ensuring no direct increase to the property tax rate.
Article II is a $3.3 Million Public Works Campus Outfitting Bond that will equip the city’s new Public Works campus on Upper Prospect Street, relocating highway, water, and wastewater equipment from flood-damaged Burnham Street facilities to a safer, more expansive site already owned by Barre.
This move provides protected storage, improved maintenance space, and better overall security for valuable city assets, reducing risks from future flooding. The debt service adds an impact of less than $8 per month to a $300,000 home.
You can find out more details on these articles here.
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Categories: Local government
Vermont lives on bonds, grants, and federal funds. Comment from Richard Day.
I said it before and I’ll say it again… VT is a welfare state
Notice, it’s not at town meeting?
Notice, the people who pay for it can’t vote for it?
Notice, this is all coming from a school budget?
We are out of control, by design, this is how they fleece Vermonters.
Nobody would vote for this if they had to pay for it themselves, at town meeting, where you vote on town topics. They have gutted town meetings and have gutted our constitution and any sense of money management.
Vermont is a very pretty state, run by grifters, lobbyists and NGo’s for grifters, lobbyist and NGO’s doing the bidding of our colonizer, the United Nations.
You could subsidize on the job training, wouldn’t even need a building for that!
But we choose to do asinine things like up people in Hotels for years, what private person would ever suggest or do this for more than a week? We are drunk with money and power in this state.
We need change.
Notice how Vermont with it’s Town Meetings was a Democracy for many, many decades until those wishing to ‘preserve democracy’ took over with the now prominent and many behind the scenes meetings and deals?
bet the group sent out flyer, emails and facebook postings only to the people that supported them……
this is how you win elections, cheat and stack the deck…..
Anyone notice the Barre bond votes are to build a “flood resilient” “affordable” housing struture in a flood plain. The second is to build a new public works campus on higher ground to get out of the flood plain.
The biggest joke of all: West Street development “the development aims to enhance local vibrancy, benefiting nearby downtown shops, restaurants, and schools.” West Street runs from the District Court House to a dead end next to St. Monica’s church. If the local vibrancy they speak of refers to the closed businesses due to flooding, the active drug peddling all around, the funeral home, or manuvering around semi-coherent lost souls staggering around aimlessly, and street noise from all sides – sounds like a great place to live – can’t wait to see the “affordable” prices and what is excluded.
Funny how they figure the tax increase on a $300,000 home when most properties in Vermont are closed to $500,000. Good luck.
Vote it down then if you all are tired of getting another tax added to your tax bill that everyone has to pay. They have a trade school in Barre thats not fully staffed, not enough programs, and not full of students currently. I don’t believe it will be in the foreseeable future either. They just want something brand new, tell them NO with your vote.