This story by Jason Starr was first published in the Williston Observer on Sept. 4, 2025.

Champlain Valley School District finance leaders on Tuesday previewed the details of a $13 million bond question they plan to put to voters at Town Meeting Day.

District Facilities Director Chris Giard outlined an array of upgrades and maintenance projects that the bond funds would cover across multiple school buildings within the five-town district.

In Williston, $1.4 million would be spent on replacing both the floor in the front gymnasium, which currently has troublesome moisture underneath, Giard said, as well as the controls for the school’s light and heating-ventilation systems. Replacement parts for the current control systems are difficult to obtain, according to Giard.

At Champlain Valley Union High School, a roof replacement and heating-ventilation system overhaul would take up the majority of the $4 million in bond funds that would be allocated to the high school. Also in the work plan is a fire alarm system replacement.

Another $4 million in projects are planned at Hinesburg Community School, including roofing, heating-ventilation and electrical work. At Charlotte Community School, $2.9 million would go to installing an elevator that meets Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, new gym bathrooms and new siding.

The district is also planning a conversion to LED lights across all its buildings. That project is estimated at $700,000.

“We have a lot of fluorescent bulbs and fixtures to get rid of,” Giard said.

The bond question, if approved for the Town Meeting Day ballot by a school board majority, would be on the ballot next to the district’s funding request for the upcoming fiscal year. District Chief Operations Officer Gary Marckres said he plans to develop a budget draft by the end of September. A community budget forum is scheduled for Oct. 25 at CVU.

The September draft will be an estimate of the budget if all current staff and services remain in place — and an estimate on the impact to property tax rates — Marckres said. With the Vermont Legislature considering wholesale changes to the way public education is funded under Act 73, “this may be our last chance in the next 4 to 5 years to have a level service budget,” Marckres told the school board’s finance committee Tuesday.

Act 73 has the potential to stifle the flow of funds that support the district, redistributing them in a new statewide formula.

“We won’t have the funding to look like we look and do what we do,” Marckres said. 

The legislation contemplates merging school districts, and lawmakers plan to consider new school district maps during the 2026 legislative session. But leaders at the school district — already the largest in the state — are intent on resisting any merger with neighboring districts.

“It’s the right size right now,” Champlain Valley School District Superintendent Adam Bunting said of the district. “I’m reluctant to talk about any merger.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Champlain Valley school leaders outline $13 million bond proposal.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in the Williston Observer on June 19.

The brick office building at 188 Harvest Lane that houses the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency was sold in May by Burlington’s Pizzagalli Properties to a Washington D.C. company that specializes in leasing property to government agencies.

The sale of the 75,000-square-foot building closed for $20 million, according to Williston Town Clerk property records.

Though the building has changed hands, its use as ICE’s “Law Enforcement Support Center” — staffed 24-7 to help law enforcement agencies around the country prosecute immigration cases — won’t change. The buyer, Easterly Government Properties, Inc., said in a news release that the building comes with a “non-cancelable” lease with the U.S. General Services Administration that runs through 2031.

“With this asset, we continue to increase our cash flows derived from federal agency tenants like the DHS and facilitate operations which remain mission-critical to the safety and security of the United States,” Easterly President and Chief Executive Officer Darrell Crate said in the release.

Easterly owns about 100 properties throughout the country that are leased to the federal government, the release states.

The ICE website describes the Williston building as a single point of contact for law enforcement agencies around the world, “providing real-time assistance … regarding aliens suspected, arrested or convicted of criminal activity.”

A detailed description of its operations on the site outlines the center’s role in helping law enforcement personnel verify immigration status and “remove aliens from the U.S. who pose a threat to public safety and national security.” Staff also conduct proactive investigations to inform ICE field officers’ work around the country.

The building has been the epicenter of citizen protests against immigration policies under President Donald Trump, both in his first and current terms. Most recently, hundreds of protesters marched along Harvest Lane and gathered in front of the building on May 1.

“I’m here because I believe in social justice and human rights,” Shelburne’s Joanna Cole told VTDigger during a May 1 interview in front of the building. “I do not want any immigrants forced out, especially illegally. I think it’s horrible so many people are being kidnapped off the street and being thrown in jail.”

Pizzagalli Development Manager Bob Bouchard said the protests had no impact on the company’s decision to sell.

“We are selling a few of our properties right now,” Bouchard said.

Pizzagalli built the building in 1999 after winning a U.S. government bid to provide office space to what was then the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It was a deal facilitated by longtime Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy in an effort to bring federal jobs to the area.

“It’s been a great property with a great tenant,” Bouchard said. “We have nothing but positive things to say about the lessee, which is the government, or the occupant, which is ICE.”

He said the company recently completed upgrades to the building with the intention to sell.

“As soon as we were done with the renovations, the property went on the market,” Bouchard said, calling Easterly a “first-class organization.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: ICE building in Williston purchased by DC firm.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in the Williston Observer on May 8.

Hey, let’s start a school newspaper!

Those maybe aren’t words you’d expect to hear from high-schoolers in the mid-2020s, but that’s exactly what the three founders of The Hawks’ Nest have done this school year at Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg.

Not since 2008 has the high school had a news source readers could physically hold and thumb through. A journalism class produced an online news site in recent years, but even that went dark at the end of last school year. 

Enter juniors Grace Warrington, Karmen Wilbur and Lily Gruber, three friends from Shelburne, Williston and Charlotte, respectively, who nurtured a vision of a new student-run print newspaper through last spring and summer. By fall, they had lined up an out-of-state printer and distribution plan, and in October published the premier issue of The Hawks’ Nest. They’ve since published four other issues.

“We knew from the start we wanted to do print,” Wilbur said. “It’s important that people are able to actually pick it up … It’s more likely to be read. With online papers, you have to go out of your way to find them.”

The paper is available in the cafeteria and library, as well as put in teachers’ mailboxes for them to distribute to their homeroom students. Wilbur recalls seeing a classmate discover The Hawks’ Nest for the first time. 

“I saw someone pick it up and start reading it and be like, ‘Oh, this is cool.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, I had a hand in making that. And now I get to watch you enjoy it.’ … We’ve put so much work into it, and it has been just so cool to see people reading it.”

Operating as a journalism club with a mostly hands-off faculty adviser, The Hawks’ Nest staff has grown to about seven writers, with coverage of sports, academic and arts events, staff profiles, opinion pieces and school policy news. 

For the current issue, Warrington wrote Part 1 of a definitive history of CVU school newspapers, with interviews of graduates from the 1970s who recall the days of the school’s original newspaper, The Clarion (1964-1972), and its successor The Cow Valley Press (1972-1979). The Hawks’ Nest will publish Part 2 of that history, written by Wilbur, in its final issue of the school year later this month. 

“We think it is important for a high school to have a school newspaper because it is an excellent way to build community and hear everyone’s voices and diverse opinions, along with giving students a chance to practice their journalistic skills,” Warrington, as editor-in-chief, wrote in the paper’s inaugural edition in October.

Faculty adviser Justin Chapman added: “It’s a civic necessity. It’s integral to the functioning of any democratic institution, including and especially public schools … There’s a reason Jefferson referred to the press as the fourth pillar of American Democracy.”

Publishing the paper has brought the founding trio closer together as friends. It’s also given them career skills and leadership experience. 

“It’s a way students can collaborate together to make something,” Warrington said. “I also think it’s important that students are given a chance to give their own perspectives on what’s happening in their school and what’s happening in the world, too.”

The challenge of continuity of a school newspaper, with staff constantly moving on through graduation, is illustrated in the rise and fall of former CVU papers: The Clarion, The Cow Valley Press, The Crusader, the Champlain Valley Chronicle. If The Hawks’ Nest is to continue for more than another year, Wilbur, Warrington and Gruber will have to find underclass editors to take the reins. 

“I’d love to get some of the incoming freshmen to help because obviously we need to pass it on,” Warrington said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Press on: Students launch CVU newspaper.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in the Williston Observer on March 20.

Next to the University of Vermont, the second largest recipient of National Institutes of Health grants in the state is a Williston business on Allen Brook Lane called MBF Bioscience.

The company was awarded a nearly $1 million grant this fiscal year and has two applications pending. So co-founder Jack Glaser (readers may recognize Glaser from his pending subdivision application of the “Glaser parcel” on Mountain View Road) is closely watching the Trump administration’s push to reduce grant allowances by capping administrative costs — a policy that has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

MBF Bioscience develops products for use in biomedical research. Not only does it receive National Institutes of Health grants for research and development, it also sells products to researchers whose work is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

“It’s a huge part of our business,” Glaser said of the grant funding.

About three weeks after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, the National Institutes of Health released a memo justifying the change, arguing that too much of the organization’s grant awards are used on “indirect costs“ such as building operations, equipment and administrative functions like accounting. It announced a cap on those costs at 15 percent of any new or existing grant award, effective as of the Feb. 7 memo date.

“NIH spent more than $35 billion in Fiscal Year 2023 on almost 50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools and other research institutions across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of this funding, approximately $26 billion went to direct costs for research, while $9 billion was allocated to overhead through NIH’s indirect cost rate,” the memo states.

The agency reports an average indirect cost rate on its grants of about 27 percent, while noting that some private non-profit foundation grants for scientific research don’t fund indirect costs, and others cap indirect costs between 10% to 15%

Due to the court-ordered injunction blocking the policy change, Glaser expects to receive the full $1 million recently approved, but two pending applications are stalled. That’s because the National Institutes of Health has managed to implement a de facto funding freeze by postponing public meetings to review new grant awards, Glaser said.

“Their response (to the judge’s order) was, ‘oh, we’ll just not let the NIH meet to decide who’s going to get funding,’” said Glaser. “So there is essentially a block right now. It’s a backdoor block that the Trump administration did by prohibiting the NIH from using a system for announcing public meetings.”

MBF Bioscience employs about 35 people out of its Williston office, and also has offices in Virginia, San Diego, the Netherlands and Japan. Glaser hopes its international business and sales into private pharmaceutical and biotech companies will be unaffected by what happens with the NIH. But if the courts ultimately allow the grant reductions that the Trump administration is seeking, it would be a significant hit to the way the company has done business over the course of its nearly 40-year history.

“It’s not like everything is contingent on NIH funding, but the way we’ve been operating and doing business for years is definitely highly dependent on getting NIH funding to do new product development,” Glaser said.

While he called this the most challenging time in his business career, he said he’s more concerned about the ecosystem of U.S. scientific research. A blog post on the company website (mbfbioscience.com) explains: “Scientific progress does not happen overnight. It is the result of sustained funding, collaboration, and commitment. Drastic budget reductions will stall projects, disrupt labs, and drive talented researchers — especially early-career scientists — out of the field. The ripple effect will be devastating, slowing the development of new treatments, vaccines, and technologies that millions rely on.”

Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark echoed that sentiment when she announced the lawsuit, filed with fellow Democrat attorneys general in 21 other states.

“Medical research funding by NIH grants has led to innumerable scientific breakthroughs, including the discovery of treatment for cancers of all types, the first sequencing of DNA and the development of the MRI. Additionally, dozens of NIH-supported scientists have earned Nobel Prizes for their groundbreaking scientific work,” a news release from her office announcing the lawsuit states.

A decline in National Institutes of Health funding jeopardizes about $120 million in Vermont, her office estimates.

The National Institutes of Health argues that the new policy is aimed at streamlining the country’s bioscientific research.

“The United States should have the best medical research in the world,” its Feb. 7 memo states. “It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead.” 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Williston bioscience business bristles as research grants threatened.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in the Williston Observer on March 6

The Chittenden Solid Waste District’s new recycling center project is back on track and back on site at Redmond Road in Williston.

The district is under contract for a $3 million purchase of 38 forested acres currently owned by Hinesburg Sand and Gravel at the northern end of Redmond Road. The parcel is across the road from the district’s Williston drop-off center and composting operation.

The Hinesburg company, which operates a sand excavation pit on the east side of Redmond Road, offered the parcel to the district last year after previous attempts to find a parcel suitable for construction fell through, according to district Executive Director Sarah Reeves. She expects the deal will close by the end of March. The district’s board authorized the purchase in February. An independent municipal entity, the district handles recycling for 18 member communities in Chittenden County.

“We’re grateful to (Hinesburg Sand and Gravel owner) Tim Casey for approaching us and for working with us,” Reeves said. “We’re very excited to have this opportunity on Redmond Road because our other main facilities are there.”

The district’s existing recycling facility is off Industrial Avenue and currently processes roughly double the recyclables it was built to handle in 1993, Reeves said.

Chittenden County voters passed a $22 million bond in 2022 to help fund a new recycling center, one that would automate sorting and increase capacity to handle the area’s anticipated residential and commercial growth. The district had identified a 27-acre parcel it owns on the east side of Redmond Road to build the facility, and obtained construction approval from the Williston Development Review Board in 2023.

But last summer, regulators with the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources flagged the parcel as unbuildable wetland, prompting district leaders to undertake a countywide search for a new site.

“We haven’t done a lot on this project, except to find a new location, since June,” Reeves told the CSWD board in February. “We’ve been pretty stuck in a holding pattern until we could secure a site.”

Construction cost estimates have ballooned since the passage of the 2022 bond. The initial estimate was $27.5 million, but that was amended up to $31 million as of last year. The cost of construction on the new parcel has not yet been estimated.

In addition to the $22 million bond, other funding sources include state grants and district reserves.

If the sale closes as planned on March 31, the district would draw up new applications for consideration by the Development Review Board. The parcel has already been deemed buildable by wetland regulators at the Agency of Natural Resources, according to Reeves.

The building and parking lot footprint would account for about 6 acres of the 38-acre site. Reeves said Hinesburg Sand and Gravel has never built on or extracted material from the site.

“We’re looking to leave as much of it forested as we can,” she said.

She hopes to break ground this fall.

Casey, the owner of Hinesburg Sand and Gravel, did not respond to a request for comment.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Chittenden Solid Waste District finds new site for recycling center in Williston.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in The Williston Observer on Dec. 12

The Chittenden Solid Waste District is abandoning its plan to build a new recycling center on Redmond Road in Williston after a summer walk-through of its 27-acre parcel found newly formed wetlands.

It was a different assessment than in 2020, when the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources first surveyed the property with drought conditions persisting in the area. Believing it had a buildable parcel, the district garnered voter support for a $22 million bond in 2022 and later received a permit for the project from the Williston Development Review Board.

But two summers of heavy rainfall have changed the complexion of the site, saturating the soil and establishing wetland vegetation, according to Vermont Agency of Natural Resources inspectors as well as a wetland consultant hired by the district.

“We experienced record rainfall over the last couple of years, which severely impacted the quality of the land,” the district wrote in an October newsletter. “It now qualifies as primarily a wetland community … We made the decision to leave the parcel undisturbed.”

CSWD Executive Director Sarah Reeves is working with district’s board of directors to find an alternative location, a setback that will push the project completion back at least a year until mid-2026, she estimates. The recycling center is designed to replace the existing center off Industrial Road in Williston. It will be built to handle nearly 50 percent more material and implement automated sorting in place of the hand-sorting that currently happens at the center. The current center accepts recyclables from residential and commercial waste haulers throughout Chittenden County. Material also comes in from other counties, Reeves said.

“Our board remains strongly committed to the materials recycling facility, and we are so appreciative that the voters of Chittenden County strongly supported the bond,” Reeves said. “We value that trust from our community, and we are committed to this project. It’s going to be an amazing facility once it is constructed.”

The district needs at least 10 acres of industrially zoned property, Reeves said, ideally centrally located in the county. It prefers vacant land over retrofitting an existing structure. A parcel with those criteria has proven difficult to find since the search began in September.

“There’s not a lot of industrial zoned land available,” Reeves said. “We are still on the hunt for that.”

The budget for the project was already ballooning over costs anticipated when voters approved the $22 million bond — so much so that district leaders scaled back the project scope earlier this year, reducing the size of the building and access road, among other cuts. Now, the district will be forced to add land acquisition to the budget.

But Reeves believes, if the district can find a construction-ready lot, with a road and utilities already in place, that construction costs could be reduced from the Redmond Road site, and items cut from the project could be added back in.

“There’s a lot of benefits to being able to be in an industrial park,” she said. “So even with needing to purchase property, it could be offset by reduced land development costs.”

The district serves 18 Chittenden County municipalities, governed by a board of directors with representation from each. Its current recycling facility, which is operated under an “open-ended” contract with Casella Waste Systems, “continues to plug along,” Reeves wrote in a July memo to the board. “However, the longer we remain in operation in the current (recycling center), the greater the investment in upkeep for the old equipment and the greater the risk of catastrophic failure of critical components.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: CSWD seeks new recycle center site.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in The Williston Observer on Dec. 5

Three national chains with thousands of stores in dozens of states will open their first Vermont locations at Williston’s Maple Tree Place in 2025.

The closure of the Christmas Tree Shops store in the summer of 2023 left a large vacancy for Maple Tree Place’s new owner, Acadia Realty Trust, which purchased the 64-acre property this past January to try and fill. It’s taken nearly 12 months, but the spot will be full by the first half of next year, according to property manager Justin Kelley.

The space will be divided in two, Kelley said, with Boot Barn taking a smaller footprint and Bob’s Discount Furniture opening a location in the larger section of the building. Founded in Connecticut in 1991, Bob’s has 189 locations in 24 states. Boot Barn, a Western-themed footwear and clothing outfitter founded in 1978 and headquartered in Kansas, has 420 locations in 46 states.

“Both companies have been looking to emerge into this market,” said Kelley, adding that Acadia hosts both as tenants in other shopping centers it owns. “We’re happy to be able to get that space repurposed, and we’re very excited to be able to have them here. We feel like it’s going to be a big lift, not just for the other tenants, but for Williston as a whole.”

Boot Barn is set to open by the end of winter, Kelley said. Bob’s Discount Furniture is aiming for late spring.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Maple Tree Place, the owner of the shuttered I Heart Mac and Cheese restaurant plans to pivot to Firehouse Subs, a Florida-based chain with a firefighter theme and nearly 1,500 locations nationwide, but none yet in Vermont.

The sub shop is planning to be open in January, Kelley said.

Kelley declined to comment on the number of current vacancies in the plaza, but the ground floor around the central green has several “for lease” signs. A portion of the second floor office space is occupied by the federal Department of Homeland Security.

Read the story on VTDigger here: National boots, furniture and sub chains to fill vacant Williston plaza.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in The Williston Observer on Nov. 21

The Champlain Valley School Board approved the lease of six new electric school buses on Tuesday to be stationed at Allen Brook School in Williston.

The buses will join two existing electric buses at the K-2 school, representing a small but growing fraction of the Champlain Valley School District’s 60-bus fleet.

“We eventually would like to get to a 50-50 mix,” school district chief operations officer Gary Marckres said.

While electrics are more expensive to purchase or lease than gas-powered buses, they are less expensive to operate and maintain, Marckres said. They are also quieter and emission-free. The six new e-buses are manufactured by Thomas Built Buses, a subsidiary of the German company Daimler Truck. They are due to arrive next year for at least a 12-year lease, with an option to extend or buy out.

“They are more environmentally friendly than a diesel bus,” Marckres said. “We think it’s a responsible decision to integrate them into our fleet.”

Included with the lease will be a row of new charging stations in the Allen Brook parking lot that are able to push electricity back into the Green Mountain Power grid when the buses are not in use. Allen Brook has been home to the district’s electric bus fleet because of its charging infrastructure. Like the existing two electrics, the new buses will continue to serve mostly Williston students. But as the fleet grows, the use of electric buses will be spread throughout the five-town school district, said Marckres.

The district’s existing two electric buses, manufactured by the Canadian company Lion Electric, have been on the road for three years. There have been kinks with their heating system and charging stations, Marckres said, but those have been ironed out.

“The buses have been pretty reliable,” he said. “The drivers like them.”

The school district was awarded a $1.2 million Clean School Bus Program grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for the buses and partnered with a Massachusetts company called Highland to procure the buses and install the charging stations. Per the contract, Highland will cover charging costs and any repairs outside of routine maintenance.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Six new e-buses coming to Williston’s Allen Brook School.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in the Williston Observer on August 15.

Do phones and schools mix?

Champlain Valley School District leaders may be leaning toward ‘no’ on that question.

Under Interim Superintendent Adam Bunting, the district is convening a committee this school year to study the so-called “phone-free schools movement.” The committee, made up of teachers, parents, students and administrators, will make eventual recommendations to the school board about what the district’s cell phone policy should be for students.

The district is currently without an overarching policy, leaving it up to school principals to set standards. Williston Central School has an “away-for-the-day” standard, where students can bring phones to school but must keep them in bags or a school-provided locked location during the school day.

“In order to maintain our learning environment, electronic games, cell phones, Airpods, smartwatches, etc. are not to be carried or used during the school day,” the grade 3-8 school’s handbook states.

The policy gets looser as kids age into high school. CVU asks students to refrain from phone use during classroom time, but allows phone use in the cafeteria and library when students have unscheduled periods.

“We have not attempted to mitigate cell phone use during those times yet,” Bunting said. “We want to learn more. The research is pretty clear about the impact of cell phone use and social media on student mental health, in addition to that, just the impact of distraction on our learners. It’s important for our learners to be present.”

He said students can get derailed during the school day by a troubling text or social media message and have difficulty refocusing on academics.

According to Rep. Erin Brady, D-Chittenden, who serves as vice chair of the House Education Committee, most teachers would welcome stricter phone use policies. Brady works as a teacher at Colchester High School.

“It’s tricky at the high school,” she said. “It’s supposed to be put away during academic times, unless a teacher has allowed it. Sometimes kids use it for quick research or they’re filming something. In my experience, everybody has them on them, and everybody checks them fairly regularly.”

Brady said the current “away during academic time” standard is “very hard to enforce.”

“If they are physically on the students, you are going to have issues with them constantly,” Brady said. “They have to somehow be put away somewhere … It seems to me the only way it’s really going to work is if it’s all or nothing, and they are physically not in the classroom.”

Two Vermont high schools — Harwood Union and Thetford Academy — have announced phone-free policies for this school year. They are giving each student a lockable pouch in which to place their internet-connected devices upon entering the school. The pouches remain automatically locked until the student leaves the building.

“Students are required to bring their pouch to and from school each day and are responsible for their pouch at all times,” Harwood school administrators explained to parents in a July letter about the policy.

“Learning and social behavior improve drastically when students are fully engaged with their teachers and classmates,” the letter continues.

Earlier this year, the Senate Education Committee passed a bill that would set statewide phone-free school standards. The House education committee has not yet taken it up. Brady would welcome a state-level solution but said that “the biggest thing is how do you do it right without putting costs on schools.”

In trying to balance phone use with learning, CVU has tried a “Be Present” campaign that encourages students to value face-to-face interactions and remain present in academic spaces. Bunting said administrators will redouble those efforts this school year.

“When we stay vigilant and we have some collective effort around that, we make some real progress,” he said.

The idea of removing phones from schools has a strong champion in Angela Arsenault, a Champlain Valley School Board member representing Williston who also serves in the Legislature. Arsenault is involved in the Vermont chapter of the Phone Free Schools Movement, a national nonprofit.

In June, she introduced the topic at a meeting of the Champlain Valley School Board’s Policy Committee. The committee’s discussion spurred Bunting’s work to convene the phone policy committee. The committee’s report and recommendations are expected by the middle of the school year, Bunting said.

The issue will also be up for discussion at a September meeting of the school board.

“We aren’t rushing into a policy yet,” Bunting said. “Social media and cell phone use and the harmful impacts really are a community issue and we have to partner with our parents and our students on how we move forward thoughtfully.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Champlain Valley School district considers phone-free future.

This story by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on April 11.

The cost of Chittenden County’s new recycling center will be nearly $5 million more than what was estimated when voters approved a $22 million bond for the project in 2022.

Chittenden Solid Waste District (CSWD) administrators are scaling back the scope of the project in an attempt to mitigate the cost overrun. CSWD Executive Director Sarah Reeves pointed to the increased cost of steel, concrete, asphalt and excavating compared to when the project was first budgeted in 2021 as the reason for the overrun. 

“We just happened to catch it at the peak of pricing,” Reeves said in a January meeting of the CSWD Board of Directors, referring to construction cost inflation, which she noted has since leveled off. 

The new recycling center is built to handle 150 times the amount of material that the current facility on Avenue C in Williston processes, CSWD Director of Compliance and Hazardous Waste Josh Estey said in a February hearing with the Williston Development Review Board. The new center is sited on a 36-acre parcel on Redmond Road, near CSWD’s Williston drop-off center and composting headquarters. It is being built for a decades-long horizon of residential and commercial growth with flexibility to handle evolving product packaging, using an automated process that replaces the human sorters the current recycling center relies on.

“This project is needed, not just for Chittenden County but for the state,” Reeves said.

CSWD leadership has reduced the building size, changed the construction of the roof, narrowed the width of the access road and paused a planned community room to chip away at the cost overrun. They are also continuing to search for government grants and loans to close the gap. But Reeves said the organization, which is funded primarily by the 18 municipalities it serves, can cover the cost overrun with its own reserve funds. She also said doing so may lead to an increase in trash collection fees, which have remained flat for the past 12 years, to replenish reserves.

“Anything that makes it more expensive to live in Chittenden County and run a business in Chittenden County I know I’m personally not for,” said Williston’s representative on the CSWD board, Kelton Bogasky. “I don’t take that lightly, raising any fees that we charge.”

The Development Review Board gave the project preliminary approval in February. A final hearing with the DRB is scheduled for April 23. In the February hearing, engineer Greg Dixson of Colchester-based Krebs & Lansing Consulting Engineers said the 68,000-square-foot facility would attract about 80 truck trips a day on Redmond Road between the operating hours of 6 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Architect AES Northeast of Plattsburgh, N.Y., has designed the building. The CSWD has issued a request for proposals from companies to bid on constructing the project. Bids are due by April 26. The district hopes to have a construction company chosen by the end of May. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Costs balloon for planned Chittenden County recycling center.

This story by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on March 28.

A $2.7 million budget deficit looms over Green Mountain Transit that, if not solved by November, will have leaders of the region’s public transit provider looking to eliminate about 30% of local bus service. 

In a Monday meeting, GMT’s General Manager Clayton Clark and Finance Director Nick Foss explained to a group of municipal administrators and state legislators that the organization has plugged its fiscal hole with federal pandemic relief grants for the past three years. After the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July, those funds will run dry. 

“Our Covid relief funds will be totally exhausted by 2025,” Foss said, estimating that the organization’s covid relief grants have totaled $16 million.

Despite a pandemic-era decision to stop collecting fares from riders (fare collection is set to resume this spring), ridership has dropped in recent years. According to GMT’s count, ridership dipped as low as 60% of pre-pandemic levels in 2021 before rebounding to 85% of pre-pandemic levels in 2023. 

On its commuter buses from Burlington to Montpelier and Burlington to St. Albans, ridership is about half of what it was pre-pandemic, Foss said. The route between Williston and Burlington remains the organization’s best performing route with about 1,500 riders a day. 

GMT leaders expect a resumption of fare collections will bolster the budget; they hope it will eventually account for about 10% of GMT’s annual revenue. But pre-pandemic, fare collections made up as much as 20% of the organization’s revenue. The bulk of GMT’s revenue comes from federal, state and municipal contributions. The town of Williston, for example, contributes roughly $280,000 annually — the fourth biggest contributor in Chittenden County behind Burlington, South Burlington and Essex, according to Foss.

GMT is lobbying for a recurring state-level funding source to stabilize its finances into the future.

“This is a problem that a majority of transit agencies are facing right now,” said General Manager Clark. “It’s an industry-wide problem.”

Sen. Thomas Chittenden, who represents Williston in the Chittenden Southeast Senate District and serves on the Senate Transportation Committee, said sustainable transit funding could come from a new tax on electric vehicle charging. With about 12,000 electric vehicles on the road in Vermont, he said, that tax could bring in about $3 million annually — mimicking the gas tax that gas motorists pay. A study commissioned by GMT identified other potential sources of recurring revenue for public transportation, such as a fee on car registrations, a tax on car rentals, a fee on utility bills and a fee on online shopping deliveries. 

“I really like the idea of car registration fees subsidizing public transit,” Chittenden said. 

Absent a new state revenue source, GMT administrators will begin the process of eliminating routes in November, Clark said, as a cost-saving measure for the fiscal year 2026 budget. They’ll work with GMT’s volunteer board of commissioners to set criteria for which routes to cut and take public comment before finalizing decisions. 

Meanwhile, when fares do resume this spring, they will come back at $2 a ride, an increase of 50 cents from pre-pandemic fares. Half-price fares will be offered to riders under 18 and over 60, and daily and monthly caps will keep expenses predictable for frequent users. 

The resumption of fares was originally planned for January but has been delayed as GMT awaits a contractor’s completion of a smartphone app that will allow riders to pay online. GMT will also sell pass cards that can be preloaded and scanned on the bus. Cash will continue to be accepted.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Fiscal hole threatens Green Mountain Transit bus service.

This story by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on Feb. 1.

If Verizon is going to install cell service antennas inside the steeple of Williston’s historic Old Brick Church, it will have to do so over the objections of members of the Williston Historical Society and several other civic leaders with deep connections to the historic building. 

The telecommunications company continues to push the idea, first proposed in 2018, as the best way to fill in a dead zone that prevents Verizon users from making calls and accessing the internet on their phones in Williston Village. The Old Brick Church Trustees and the Selectboard both gave informal endorsements when the proposal resurfaced last year. 

But about 30 community members packed the Town Hall meeting room Monday for a meeting of the trustees, with several expressing their opposition to the proposal. Two Verizon contractors were also in attendance to present the latest design for the project. 

Built in 1832, the town-owned church is on the National Historic Register.

“I just think this is a travesty,” said Williston Historical Society board member and past president Brenda Perkins. “It just is not right to take this church over for a corporate interest.”

Dave Yandell, who co-founded the weekly Brick Church Music Series that went dormant during the pandemic, also spoke in opposition to the proposal. The town currently rents the church out for special events such as weddings and funerals.

“Please don’t change the character of the building,” Yandell said. “It’s fine the way it is, and I don’t think this is an appropriate use.”

Louis Hodgetts, an engineer with Dubois and King in South Burlington who is working on the project for Verizon, explained the latest design Monday. It would involve replacing the wood in the steeple with fiberglass and placing three antennas behind the fiberglass, with a fourth antenna above that. None of the antennas would be visible from the outside, Hodgetts said. 

A storage space would be constructed attached to the back of the building with telecommunications equipment to serve the antennas and cooling fans and air conditioning accompanying the equipment. The steeple is Verizon’s best option to improve its coverage gap in the Village, Hodgetts said. 

“The goal of this project is to improve coverage in this area,” he said. 

Lisa Elowson, a resident of South Road, would welcome the improved cell service. The inability to use mobile phones where she lives is a safety concern, she said. Selectboard member Mike Isham pointed out, however, that wireless phones without a signal can still place calls to 911 for emergency services. Elowson also noted that the town is not currently making much use of the church. According to Town Manager Erik Wells, the town would receive about $25,000 a year in a lease for the steeple space with Verizon. 

Several residents encouraged the company to look elsewhere for wireless infrastructure in the Village. They also noted that there are other cell service provider options — T-Mobile and AT&T.

“Preserve the church,” resident Ginger Morton implored the trustees. “There are lots of other avenues that haven’t been explored.”

Kurt Oughstun, a Williston resident and UVM engineering professor, raised concerns about the health implications of cellular infrastructure, noting the proximity of the church to Williston Central School.

“I’m very concerned with the children being exposed to this on a daily basis,” he said.

The trustees plan to vote during their March 6 meeting whether to recommend approval of the project to the selectboard. Any lease with Verizon would need selectboard approval. The time and location of the March 6 meeting has not yet been set. Residents wishing to provide the trustees with comments before the meeting can write them to town staffer Erin Dickinson by email at edickinson@willistonvt.org or by mail to: Erin Dickinson c/o Old Brick Church Trustees, 7900 Williston Road, Williston VT 05495. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Residents speak out against Verizon’s plan for Williston Village landmark.

This story by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on Jan. 25.

The Williston Selectboard changed the town’s zoning rules and planning documents Jan. 16 to accommodate a 109-home housing development in the town’s first-ever “specific plan” approval of a residential subdivision. 

The unanimous vote capped roughly 18 months of planning, public hearings and committee approvals, resulting in an agreement in which landowners Jack and Caitlin Glaser will gift 50 acres near the corner of Mountain View and Old Stage roads to the town in exchange for expedited new home construction unbound by the town’s typical growth management caps.

“I think you’ve made a very wise decision that will support the community now and far into the future,” Jack Glaser said after the selectboard vote. 

The approval came after a public hearing where citizens in favor of the plan outnumbered those opposed 10-to-1. The majority of those speaking in favor of the plan are patrons of Windswept Farm, an equestrian facility located next to the 100-acre Glaser property that uses part of the land as horse pasture. The agreement to convey 50 acres to the town paves the way for the continued operation of the farm, which has been a horse-lovers community on Old Stage Road for half a century, offering summer camps, after-school lessons and horse-boarding.

“If you vote yes to this plan you will allow us to stay in business,” Windswept Farm owner Tina Mauss told the board. “You will keep the open space on Old Stage Road. If you vote no, it will close us down and you’ll just have a bunch of houses there.”

Supporters of the farm chimed in from Jericho, Richmond and Williston, describing it as a unique rural oasis in an increasingly suburban area. 

“I’ve always been drawn to the place,” said Olivia Cieri, a Champlain Valley Union High School freshman who has attended camp and worked as a camp counselor at Windswept. “It just kind of has a magical aura. It’s like a second home to me.”

With the town set to acquire the horse pasture, Windswept will need to reach an agreement with the selectboard to continue to run horses there. Discussions about that agreement are premature, Town Manager Erik Wells said. The land won’t come under town ownership until the Glasers receive subdivision approval from the Development Review Board (DRB). The DRB gave a preliminary approval in November. 

“The project will need to obtain a discretionary permit from the DRB next,” Wells said Monday. “The property conveyance itself is a step after obtaining a discretionary permit. The applicant will be required to provide a draft irrevocable offer of dedication for the land donation as part of the discretionary permit application.

“The Glaser specific plan advisory committee and the conservation commission both recommended that the selectboard work with the Mausses and Windswept Farm to lease the land to them after it is conveyed to the town,” Wells continued. “Discussing a potential lease agreement will likely occur in parallel as the project goes through the (DRB) process.”

In addition to the pastureland, the town is also set to acquire 15 acres fronting Mountain View Road to protect it from housing construction and preserve Green Mountain views. One of the changes the selectboard approved was to reclassify that acreage as “protected viewshed” in the town’s Comprehensive Plan.

The lone dissenter at the public hearing, resident Reuben Escorpizo, said the public benefit of acquiring the land does not justify the exemption from the town’s existing housing construction limits. The limits are in place “to ensure we have a pace of development that is commensurate with services for all people of Williston,” he said.

Alternate development plans submitted under the town’s traditional subdivision regulations show a 180-home neighborhood.  

The plan approved calls for 109 homes with two new roads, one intersecting with Old Stage Road and the other with Mountain View Road. The agreement limits construction to 18 homes per year. The Glasers have partnered with Sheppard Homes of Essex on construction. 

“This plan shows the balance of the need for housing, but it respects the land and preserves a beautiful piece of land for the community,” said resident Cathy Keim. 

Selectboard chair Ted Kenney agreed: “I think it’s a great plan,” he said. “I think it’s a model for balancing growth and preservation.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Williston Selectboard approves housing project.

This story by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on Dec. 21.

At six stories and nearly 90 feet, a building proposed for a parcel just south of the intersection of Route 2 and 2A in Taft Corners would be the tallest structure in Williston — the first mixed-use building reviewed under new zoning regulations approved by the selectboard earlier this year. 

Property owner Jeff Mongeon said the 59 apartments will loosen the area’s housing market and help growing businesses like his attract and retain employees. Mongeon is founder and owner of Polly insurance agency, located in an existing three-story building on an abutting parcel.

“This is meant to be workforce housing,” he said. “We have some really thriving companies that are either in, or right around, Williston that are growing rapidly, and there is a need for housing for people who we are trying to get to move here.”

The building is designed with studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, underground parking, street level commercial space and a gym for residents. Twelve of the apartments will be rent restricted as affordable for people making 80 percent of the area median income. The building is sited in front of the building where Polly moved its headquarters in 2019, along Route 2A. 

TD Bank currently runs a branch in the Polly building but is planning to move into the new building with a drive-through teller window, Mongeon said. A total of 10,300 square feet of commercial space will be built on the ground level. 

“We’ll be looking to fill the commercial space with hopefully some businesses that are complementary to both Polly as a business and the residences above — things that make living more comfortable, more walkable and more community-based,” Mongeon said. 

A native of Colchester, Mongeon participated in some of the public meetings that the planning commission held while developing the new zoning regulations — a “form-based code” that prescribes the look, size, materials and orientation of buildings in Taft Corners. 

Mongeon is a proponent of the new regulations but said they are “hard to comply with. There are a lot of different things you have to account for in your design.”

The new regulations allow development applications to bypass the citizen-comprised Development Review Board and instead seek approval from town planning staff. 

Town staff reviewed the application during a meeting last week. Some residents spoke out at the meeting against the building’s height, echoing concerns expressed during the drafting of the new regulations. Resident Peter Brooks said during the meeting that the proposed building is a departure from surrounding building heights, would be imposing and change the feel of the area, according to meeting minutes.

Town Planner Matt Boulanger said he is working this week to finalize a “certificate of conformity” determination that would green-light a groundbreaking. The building is designed by Wiemann Lamphere Architects of South Burlington.

“(It) is kind of the beginning of what everybody in Williston wants,” Mongeon said, “which is a really thriving, walkable commercial-residential area in Taft Corners. I think this is a great first step and we’re committed to building a really nice place.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Proposed Taft Corners building would be tallest in Williston.

This story by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on Oct. 19.

After more than a year of deliberations, the Williston Planning Commission has given its blessing to a housing development plan on the 100-acre Glaser parcel at the corner of Old Stage and Mountain View roads. 

Property owners Jack and Caitlin Glaser, with the help of former Williston Planning and Zoning Director Ken Belliveau as a consultant, have applied for development approval through the town’s rarely used “specific plan” process. The process calls for the Glasers to gift about half the acreage to the town in exchange for altering land use regulations to expedite the construction of 109 homes. 

The commission’s approval came earlier this month on a 6-1 vote, with member Chapin Kaynor opposed. The approval ends the commission’s involvement with the project and forwards it to the selectboard for consideration. The project would also need development review board approval before construction could begin.  

“I think the applicant has really made their case and earned the opportunity to bring it forward to the (selectboard),” said planning commission member Ellie Beckett. 

The 53 acres due to be given to the town was recently appraised at $1.9 million. But its value goes beyond dollars, Belliveau said, as its preservation would allow for the continued operation of Windswept Farm, a beloved equestrian facility that the Glasers have allowed to use the land as horse pasture. Future farm operations would be subject to a lease agreement with the town. 

Farm owner Mike Mauss endorses the plan, noting that, under the town’s traditional subdivision regulations, the parcel could be developed with more than 200 homes. 

“My fear is if a major developer takes that land over, there will be a large increase in the number of houses, which will increase traffic and increase the effect on schools,” Mauss said. “We have an opportunity now to actually limit growth to (109) homes, as opposed to what could be there.”

Glaser validated that fear when he explained his Plan B for the parcel — sell to a seasoned developer.

“Our involvement will end if the specific plan isn’t approved and the town will be working with a developer whose objective is to maximize profit,” Glaser said, “and (that) means building the most homes.”

Over the course of the planning commission’s deliberations, the development plan changed to reduce the pace of buildout from a maximum of 25 homes a year to 18. The Glasers also agreed to keep 10 percent of the homes perpetually affordable and to split the road configuration so there is an outlet on both Mountain View and Old Stage roads. The original plan called for both new roads to intersect with Old Stage. 

Fifteen of the 53 acres to be given to the town are along Mountain View Road, preserving the easterly views that give the road its name. 

“This is probably the best outcome for this particular piece of land,” resident Terry Marron said. 

But Kaynor, the lone planning commission member to vote against the plan, disagrees. He prefers any housing development proposal for the property to go through the typical development review process, which includes growth management regulations designed to limit the pace of housing construction. 

Public sentiment, he said, is stronger for slowing the pace of construction than for preserving mountain views. 

“We are meeting one goal of the town plan and taking away another,” Kaynor said. “I don’t think the give is equal to the take … Our commitment to growth management shouldn’t be bypassed for one viewshed.”

Editor’s note: Williston Planning Commission member Shayla Livingston is married to VTDigger editor-in-chief Paul Heintz. Heintz was not involved in the publication of this story, which was produced by the Williston Observer.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Williston Planning Commission endorses housing development.

This article by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on Sept. 21.

Many Williston residents are ignoring a town ban on keeping chickens on small residential lots. Rather than enforce the ban, Williston planners believe it’s time to change the rules.

Williston Zoning Administrator Matt Boulanger took the recent opportunity of crafting new affordable housing regulations to attempt to lift the ban on backyard chickens, which are listed as “livestock” in Williston’s zoning bylaw and prohibited on lots of less than 1 acre. It was the “first hard look at our zoning bylaws in a post-Covid world,” he wrote in a Sept. 1 memo to the selectboard, and allowing chickens is an attempt to “improve food resilience.”

But selectboard members who recalled the contentious debate on the subject five years ago —  both Ted Kenney and Terry Macaig remain on the board from that time and both opposed lifting the ban —  advised the board to slow the process.

“There are a fair number of folks in Williston on lots that are smaller than an acre, often in a suburban setting, who, despite the zoning prohibition, have backyard chickens,” Boulanger said, adding that his office hasn’t received any complaints about it. “This is not the first time our bylaws are somewhat behind what’s happening out in the world. Sometimes zoning disallows something … and we start to wonder if that still makes sense. 

“At a relatively small scale,” he added, “it’s something that can be done without creating a nuisance for your neighbors.”

The noise of a rooster crow, the containment of feces, the wafting of odors and the potential for disease spread were all things that weighed on the 2018 board’s 3-2 decision to continue the backyard chicken ban. 

The planners’ current proposal would create an allowance for up to 12 chickens per household with a buffer from property lines of 15 feet for chicken coops and 20 feet for bedding and feed, and it would require regular removal of manure. It’s more permissive than the 2018 proposal, which would have allowed up to six chickens per flock and disallowed the male of the species —  the notoriously loud rooster. 

In proposing to allow roosters, Boulanger said noise complaints could be regulated under the town’s noise ordinance. 

At its Sept. 5 meeting, the board voted unanimously to forward the housing regulations to a public hearing while separating out the chicken regulations for further scrutiny.

Kenney indicated that the 12-chicken allowance might be too many. 

“I voted against it the last time at six,” he said. 

In a dense neighborhood where multiple households are each keeping 12 chickens, that could amount to dozens of chickens within a small area, he said. 

“The noise and the odor and the things that will come to feed on the feed are all significant issues,” he said. “I’m pretty concerned about that. And the fact that people do it – well people speed too, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have speed limits.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Williston officials discuss lifting backyard chicken ban.

This article by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on Aug. 31.

Twenty acres of GlobalFoundries’ vacant Williston property off Redmond Road will be enlisted for solar energy production in a project soon to be considered by the Vermont Public Utility Commission.

The 8,000-ground-mounted-panel array is estimated to produce 3.5 megawatts of energy and is being developed in partnership with Encore Renewable Energy of Burlington. 

The 10- to 15-foot-high panels will be set about 80 feet from the road with new plantings to shield the array from view, according to an Aug. 1 filing with the town of Williston. The parcel is described as an agricultural field, so impact to natural resources will be minimal, the filing states. 

“The applicant worked with its consultants to configure the project in a way that would maximize the potential energy generation benefits while minimizing environmental and aesthetic impacts,” the filing states.

The town government is entitled to review the project because of its state-approved “enhanced” Energy Plan finalized in 2019. The Energy Plan lists several considerations for siting new wind and solar projects that are due to receive “substantial deference” when the Public Utility Commission considers whether to issue the project a “Certificate of Public Good.” It’s a weightier standard than the “due consideration” the commission gives to input from municipalities without a state-approved energy plan.

Siting criteria in the town’s Energy Plan include the protection of views and avoidance of habitat fragmentation. The town’s energy committee and planning commission will both review the proposal, according to Town Manager Erik Wells.

Energy generated from the site will feed directly into GlobalFoundries operations, according to Jeffrey Cram, the company’s director of electrical distribution and sustainable energy, aligning the company with Vermont’s renewable energy goals. 

“Developing the array in Williston, near where we are going to consume the electricity, helps meet a portion of (Vermont’s renewable energy standard) cost-effectively with minimum impacts,” he said. 

The company recently created its own power subsidiary, GF Power, after receiving state approval last year to manage its own energy supply, costs, transmission and distribution. GF Power currently buys power primarily from Green Mountain Power under a contract that ends in 2026. After that, the company will be free to consider “the whole view of potential partners and relationships that we can purchase electricity through,” Cram said.

“In the future, we’ll have a combination of producing our own solar and external wholesale contracts,” he said. “We’ve asked (Encore) to look at our entire campus and find suitable locations for developing solar.” 

The GlobalFoundries campus straddles the Winooski River with its primary business — its microchip manufacturing operation — located on the Essex Junction side. It leases space to other companies on the Williston side, and several years ago sold a parcel to a housing developer along Mountain View Road. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: GlobalFoundries pitches solar array in Williston.

This story by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on August 10.

Williston emerged from the July 10-11 Vermont floods relatively unscathed compared to the disastrous damage experienced in other parts of the state. 

But the town’s firefighters were still essential in the immediate response to the event. 

Williston Fire Chief Aaron Collette was deployed to lead an urban search and rescue squad that sped around the state conducting evacuations and rescues of people and pets as the floodwaters crested. He described his experiences in a presentation to the Williston-Richmond Rotary Club last Thursday morning. 

For two intense days, the team moved more than a dozen people who were trapped by water to higher ground, evacuated others, conducted a missing person search and lost the service of two swift-water rescue boats — all while going mostly without sleep. 

“You can imagine the fatigue level,” Collette said. 

The Williston Fire Department is trained as a unit in car crash rescue, rescue from industrial machinery and ice rescue. It has members that have additional training in swift-water rescue and urban search and rescue. Collette showed the Rotarians a photo of a rubble pile at the Vermont National Guard’s headquarters at Camp Johnson in Colchester where firefighters and rescue dogs train in urban search and rescue scenarios.

“I’m not sure that a lot of folks are aware that we have that capability,” he said. 

After the flooding of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, the state worked with funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to ramp up its swift-water rescue capabilities, Collette said, bringing on rescue boats and conducting training that were essential to operations on July 10-11.

“We were caught unprepared in Irene,” Collette said. “We don’t want to be in that position again.”

By July 7, the National Weather Service was in contact with Vermont first-responders about the foreboding forecast. “‘It looks really bad,’” forecasters warned, according to Collette. “‘This could be worse than Irene.’”

The state deployed 12 swift-water rescue teams and enlisted help from out-of-state crews. By 6 a.m. on July 10, Collette’s team was staged in Manchester. It later went to Londonderry to help people evacuate their homes. There they rescued a driver whose truck was stuck in rising water. They were then deployed to Barre, being rerouted from Route 7 because Otter Creek flooding had made it impassable. They worked in Barre through the overnight hours, catching just two hours of sleep in the Barre Elementary School gym before waking early the morning of July 11 for more rescues. 

In Berlin, they rescued a woman who had spent the night on her kitchen counter amid rising water, Collette recalled. 

Collette’s team was one of several doing similar first-responder work simultaneously throughout the state. The teams are preparing detailed reports of their experiences for a statewide review, Collette said. 

“We want to hear all the stories and hear all the lessons learned to see what we can do better next time,” he said. 

He also thanked town officials, some of whom are in the Rotary club, for their continued investment in the Williston Fire Department.

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘You can imagine the fatigue’: Williston fire chief recalls flood rescues.

This story by Jason Starr was first published by the Williston Observer on August 3.

The Essex Junction wastewater treatment facility was not built to handle what a growing craft brewery flushes into the system.

Last summer, with high-demand waste stretching the facility to its limit, Water Quality Superintendent Chelsea Mandigo organized a test. Each of the three municipalities the facility serves — Williston, Essex and Essex Junction — would simultaneously test the wastewater they were piping in to try and determine where the highest-strength waste was coming from. 

Sampling quickly revealed that the most problematic waste was coming from Williston, Mandigo said. 

“So we started working backwards,” she said, “and as we worked backwards toward Burlington Beer Company, it was very obvious that was the source.”

Since its founding in 2014, Burlington Beer Company has grown steadily at its Omega Drive location behind the Get Air trampoline park. It took a big leap in 2018 when it increased brewing capacity by nearly 1,000% to 10,000 barrels a year. Its second major leap came three years later, in 2021, when it moved its taproom and restaurant to a 14,000-square-foot space on Flynn Avenue in Burlington, opening up enough space in Williston to double beer production. 

The company installed several holding tanks in 2018 to “sidestream” wastewater and send byproduct to an anaerobic digester for conversion to energy. But, according to founder and CEO Joe Lemnah, that system is no longer adequate.

“We’ve grown a lot,” Lemnah said. “We’re making significantly more beer.”

The Town of Williston, meanwhile, is also on a growth spurt with new commercial and residential neighborhoods recently constructed and more on the horizon. It needs a wastewater treatment facility with capacity to handle the anticipated growth.

“Williston wants to keep buying more and more capacity and we don’t have any more to give at this point until we get a handle on (the brewery’s waste stream),” Mandigo said.

With that in mind, the selectboard last month reached an agreement with Lemnah described as “an effort to govern BBCO’s wastewater discharge and ensure compliance with the (town’s) Sewer Use Ordinance.” In it, the town agrees not to enforce any violations of the sewer ordinance against the company and the company agrees to install a state-of-the-art on-site wastewater pretreatment system by next July. 

The town also agreed to apply for a state grant on behalf of the company to fund the system. Chip Crawford of Champlin Associates, who is working with the company to install the system, described it as a microbiological reactor (MBR) system that will reduce the strength of the effluent so that it is similar to typical residential wastewater. The material that is separated out will be shipped to a digester for conversion into power, Lemnah said.

“They are the ones that have to prove that it’s going to work,” Williston Public Works Director Bruce Hoar told the selectboard. “We have no reason to think that it won’t.”

In a prepared statement at the selectboard’s July 11 meeting, Lemnah said: “I want to reaffirm Burlington Beer Company’s unwavering commitment to minimizing our impact on the … town’s wastewater treatment plant. We are cognizant of our responsibility as local community members and strive to exceed the standards that uphold the health of our city and its environment.

“We fully understand and embrace the fact that (our) success is intertwined with our ability to be good neighbors and responsible partners with the Town of Williston.”

Until the system is up and running, the agreement lays out a sampling plan to ensure what’s being sent to the wastewater treatment facility does not exceed a certain threshold, measured in “biochemical oxygen demand” (BOD) — a unit of measure used to determine the strength of wastewater. According to Mandigo, the BOD coming from the Burlington Beer Company has been roughly double what the facility receives from residential and commercial buildings. 

The sampling is set to begin this month and will be conducted biweekly “by an independent third party consultant paid for by BBCO,” the agreement states. If the samples exceed the threshold, the company will be fined, according to the agreement.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Williston, brewery reach agreement to lessen impact on wastewater system.

This story by Jason Starr first appeared in the Williston Observer on June 8.

The Williston Planning Commission is ready to hold a public hearing on land use regulation changes specific to the 97-acre Glaser parcel at the corner of Old Stage and Mountain View roads that would enable a 109-home subdivision.

Landowners Jack and Caitlin Glaser applied for the subdivision under the town’s rarely used “specific plan” process that requires a multi-tiered review by a subcommittee of the planning commission, the full planning commission, the selectboard and finally the development review board. An approval would create site-specific zoning rules and accelerate the pace of construction beyond the constraints of the growth management caps the town currently has in place. In return, the Glasers pledge to give 53 acres to the town, including about 15 acres fronting Mountain View Road, that preserves views of the mountains to the east.

The planning commission voted 4-2 on Tuesday to move the application along for a public hearing, which is planned for mid-July. The vote followed a unanimous recommendation of approval from the subcommittee that has worked for the past six months to revise the plan for the neighborhood. 

“This is a decision to take another step forward. There are several of these yet to come if this is to go over the finish line,” Planning Director Matt Boulanger said. 

The plan was revised over the course of several subcommittee meetings from the original submission the Glasers proposed last year. Current plans show two distinct neighborhoods connected by a rec path. One of the neighborhoods, with a cul-de-sac road, would be accessed through a new intersection with Mountain View Road and the other, with a semi-circular road, would have two new intersection points with Old Stage Road. 

Eleven of the 109 homes are proposed to be deed restricted as affordable. Development would occur at a pace of no more than 18 homes per year. 

“The way things actually buildout in real life, it tends not to be steady,” said Ken Belliveau, the former Williston planning director who is advising the Glasers on the application. “There is a certain amount of variability. It’s not 18 units per year, it’s no more than 18 units per year, understanding that the town has concerns about everything coming online at once.”

In addition to the 15 acres along Mountain View Road that would come under town ownership, the plan also proposes granting to the town about 38 acres off Old Stage Road. This is acreage the Glasers currently allow their neighbors, Windswept Farm, to use for equestrian activities. The subcommittee envisions a future lease between the farm and the town to allow for its continued operations.

“People value (Windswept Farm) as an important community asset,” Belliveau said. 

Windswept Farm owners Mike and Tina Mauss have sent the town an operations plan and letter “that summarizes their ideal lease terms that can be used as a starting point for discussion,” the subcommittee states in a memo to the planning commission. 

“The town has several leases on town owned conserved land, including simple agreements with farmers at the Mahon parcel and the Catamount fields. We anticipate the town would use a similar format for any lease with Windswept Farm,” Town Planner Simon Myles wrote in the memo.

Planning commission member Chapin Kaynor voted against the proposal Tuesday. He said his suggestion of a rec path connection from the parcel to Williston Village through the adjacent Northridge parcel was not sufficiently explored. Commission members Cate Lamar, Shayla Livingston and Jill Pardini said they had hoped for more affordable housing, including a suggestion the commission made encouraging the Glasers to reach out to nonprofits like the Chittenden County Housing Authority and Habitat for Humanity to consider the needs of adults with developmental disabilities. 

“I’m just not sure if the view is enough of a substantial benefit for the town,” Lamar said. 

Editor’s note: Williston Planning Commission member Shayla Livingston is married to VTDigger editor-in-chief Paul Heintz. Heintz was not involved in the publication of this story, which was produced by the Williston Observer.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Public hearing planned for Williston housing project proposal.

This story by Jason Starr first appeared in the Williston Observer on May 25.

The Williston Selectboard came up short of a call from a group of about 230 petitioners to ban the use of body-gripping animal traps on town land but did approve limits to the practice in a new policy unanimously approved last Tuesday. 

Williston residents submitted a petition two years ago urging the town to prohibit the practice, calling animal traps “inhumane and indiscriminate” and posing a risk to pets and children. The effort to ban the practice mirrors a broader initiative by wildlife activists to enact a statewide ban.

“I am worried about this for my dog, and all dogs and children who use the town lands,” resident Nancy Kahn wrote on the petition to the selectboard. “This is not a safe or humane way to treat any animal domestic or otherwise.”

Town staff worked with the volunteer conservation commission and a consulting attorney to draft a policy to present to the board. An outright ban on trapping, or a ban of certain types of traps, would not be legal under state law, the town’s attorney advised. But the town is authorized to create rules and conditions for trapping on land it owns — like its many country parks and conservation areas. State law requires trappers to receive landowner permission to trap furbearing animals — such as beavers, otters, raccoons, skunks, coyotes and bobcats.

Under the new policy, town administrators will allow only “essential” trapping, defined as necessary to managing a threat to public safety, property or infrastructure. It also creates a case-by-case allowance for wildlife research and/or monitoring. The town will deny all other trapping requests, the policy states.

Williston Public Works Director Bruce Hoar worked with the conservation commission in drafting the policy, lobbying to retain the town’s ability to trap nuisance animals. The policy directs the department to contract only with licensed and insured trappers and to be advised of the location of traps set by contractors. Contracted trappers are required to use “the most safe, effective, selective, practical and humane methods and techniques for capturing furbearer species,” the policy states. It also requires contractors to notify the town when a non-target animal is captured. 

Signs will be posted alerting the public to stay on trails when trapping is taking place. There is an exemption from the signing requirement in areas where town infrastructure is located but where there are no town trails. 

Hoar “expressed concerns that … signs notifying people of trapping occurring on a property will lead to traps being stolen,” Town Planner Simon Myles wrote in a memo about the policy to the selectboard. 

“We had a lot of back and forth with the Department of Public Works,” Myles said. 

People who disregard the policy and trap on town-owned land without permission will be subject to trespassing charges, the policy states. That includes people who use town land to access a stream to set a trap.

Meanwhile, state wildlife officials are currently taking public comment on possible new statewide regulations on trapping and hunting with dog packs, which wildlife advocates, led by a group called Protect Our Wildlife, have long lobbied state lawmakers to ban. The Legislature directed the Department of Fish and Wildlife to create new rules for both practices with the passage of Act 159 and Act 165 in 2022. 

Public hearings are planned for June 20 in Rutland, June 21 in Montpelier and online via Microsoft Teams on June 22. To participate in the meetings, visit https://tinyurl.com/trappinghearing. Public comment is also being accepted by email through the end of June at anr.fwpubliccomment@vermont.gov. Write “trapping and coyote regulations” in the subject line of your email.

Brenna Galdenzi of Protect Our Wildlife said any new rules that fall short of a statewide ban of trapping and dog pack hunting will be “toothless, unenforceable recommendations that will result in no meaningful changes to lessen the suffering that animals endure as a result of these cruel activities.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Williston bans ‘non-essential’ trapping on town-owned land.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in the Williston Observer on May 18.

The first-ever land development application under Williston’s new form-based code was recently delivered to the town’s planning department. 

The same ownership group that constructed the Hilton Home2 Suites hotel in the Finney Crossing neighborhood in 2020 is proposing a new four-story hotel just a stone’s throw to the east. Once constructed, the two hotels would be about a football field’s length apart. 

“The existing hotel is doing very well, and that might give you some insight why another hotel might work,” Finney Crossing developer Scott Rieley said, referring further questions to Erik Hoekstra of Redstone development company in Burlington. Hoekstra is the “managing general partner” of both the existing 100-room Hilton and the proposed 115-room hotel, which will be sited at the corner of Holland Lane and Market Street. He could not be reached for comment. 

The landowner and official project applicant is Rieley Properties and Snyder Commercial Properties — the partnership of Rieley and Chris Snyder that has created the mixed-use neighborhood that now boasts a variety of national and regional restaurants and retailers, as well as a mix of condominiums and apartments. Snyder, Rieley and Hoekstra attended Tuesday’s meeting of the selectboard, where they asked to purchase 10,000 gallons per day of wastewater capacity to accommodate the hotel’s operations. The board unanimously approved. 

“Another hotel is a planning goal for the town?” asked board member Jeanne Jensen. “I’m struggling with that. Every hotel, is that housing that doesn’t get built?”

The hotel is sited on one of three remaining unbuilt lots in Finney Crossing. On the drawing board for the other two remaining lots are an apartment building and a multi-tenant commercial building. In contrast to the Hilton hotel, the new hotel is designed in an “L” shape and with a sloped roof, in accordance with the new form-based code. 

The selectboard adopted the form-based code last year, creating new building standards that focus on the look of construction and its relation to streets and surrounding buildings, rather than the traditional form of zoning that regulates building uses. The hotel application is the first to be filed under the new code. It will be reviewed by town staff for conformity with the code, instead of the traditional land use review by the Development Review Board. 

However, one aspect of the plan does need to go before the DRB for approval, according to Planning Director Matt Boulanger. That is a land subdivision that is a prerequisite of the project. The developers last week filed the required subdivision permit application with the DRB, of which Rieley is a member and former chair who typically recuses himself from applications involving Snyder and Finney Crossing.

Read the story on VTDigger here: A(nother) new hotel planned for Taft Corners.

This story by Jason Starr was first published in the Williston Observer on April 27.

Four officers have moved on from the Williston Police Department since the start of the new year, prompting town leaders to bump officer pay and accelerate hiring and retention bonuses. 

In a closed-door session earlier this month, the selectboard reopened the town’s three-year employment contract with the officers’ union and agreed on increased wages that amount to “a few dollars more per hour,” according to Town Manager Erik Wells.

Wages were competitive within Chittenden County when the contract was finalized last January but had already become outdated, Wells said, as other agencies have finalized contracts over the past year.

“There is a real high demand for police officers,” he said. “It’s a very challenging job market right now. The town wants to be competitive among other agencies in the area, especially with a very limited pool of qualified, experienced officers out there.”

The selectboard also accelerated “hiring and retention” bonuses that it created last year. The board made $10,000 available for officers to be paid over three years. The first payments totaling $2,500 were distributed last spring. Earlier this month, the board bumped up this year’s payment from $2,500 to $3,750. That means next year’s payment is reduced from $5,000 to $3,750. 

“It’s still the same overall amount over three years, we just shifted how we spread it a little bit,” Wells said. 

The Williston Police Department was fully staffed from last August to January, when four officers left in quick succession. Neighboring departments are similarly short-staffed.

“It’s the nature of law enforcement right now,” said Wells. “There’s a lot of openings in Vermont and nationally. There are more people retiring or moving into a different career path than getting into policing. It’s anticipated to continue for the next few years at least.”

The town has hired a consultant to assess its current and future policing needs. The consultant, JW Consulting of Arlington, Vt., is led by former Vermont State Police director Jim Baker. 

The study will break down where calls for police are coming from, predict where future needs will be and assess the role of mental health professionals supporting the police force.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Williston police get pay bump as ranks shrink.