Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi everybody, this is Alex Torpy, your town manager, here for a special recap episode of Hanover's 2024 town meeting that took place yesterday and a little bit into this morning. Actually, I want to start with a heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated in town meeting this year. The town has invested a lot of energy in trying to find new ways to inform and engage all of you in the public and with such a large turnout. Although I don't have an exact number at the time I'm recording this, but the estimate is between 253 hundred voters who checked in, which is about double the total attendees from last year and quadruple the number of people who remained last year to vote on the budget. So kudos to the Hanover community for showing up and coming out. We had a number of really important town issues on the ballot and through the business meeting such as on the budget and union contracts, and I appreciate town meetings consideration of these new programs and policies. And on behalf of all of the department heads and staff, thank you for your support and to the select board's leadership in helping us get there. I also before I run through the results, I want to thank a bunch of people who helped put the election together. This includes Donna Stender, Kerry Osgood, Tracy Walsh, Bobby Hitchcock, Patty Deworst, Aileen Chaitlin and Alison Gorman, Jeremy Eggleton, ASa and our grounds crew, and the many, many dozens of election volunteers, as well as our police and fire departments for their support of the event, the select board support and leadership, and walking us through many of the warrant articles and some of the other staff that helped and department heads that were there as well. I'd also like to do a special thank you to Ellen Bullion, our finance director, for sitting up on the dais with me and the select board and our moderator and answering some questions about budget and finance related topics. There are many others who helped make this entire thing happen, from our legal team that really provided some value in answering some important questions, from the SAU and Hanover High School to our AV guy, to the co op who donated the snacks this year. But I wanted to make a special thanks to all those named above for their exceptionally hard work, months and weeks of preparation, and then several really, really long days. So, moving on, what I'm going to do in this episode is just a quick run through of the results or outcomes from yesterday. I am not going to attempt to cover the nuance or discussion, and there was much of it over our four or four and a half hours. For that, I suggest looking for the minutes or the video of the meeting, which was streamed live. You can find that on Jam Junction Art Media's YouTube, where all the other Hanover meetings are. What I'm about to read out is also posted on our website, and there's a link to that in the show notes if you'd rather read it instead. And I'll give a second special thanks to Kerry Osgood for putting that document together so quickly the morning after a meeting that we all left a little after midnight.
[00:03:22] So I will start at the top with the results from the ballot portion of election day. So the first is article one and this is to vote by nonpartisan ballot for the following town officers. There are three candidates for a three year term for two select board seats.
[00:03:43] Those three individuals were Kari Asmis at 348 votes, Jared Burke at 476 votes, and Joanna Whitcomb at 500 votes. So Jared Burke and Joanna Whitcomb were elected to those two seats for moderator. Jeremy Eggleton received 631 votes for supervisor of the checklist. Patty Durst received 619 votes for trustee of the Etna Town Library. John Collier received 626 votes for trustee of the trust funds. John Stebbins received 620 votes for trustees of the cemetery on a three year term. Harold Frost received 598 votes for trustee of the cemetery for a two year term. Write in candidate Petra Sargent received 215 votes for trustee of the cemetery. One year terminal Kevin Canute write in candidate received 221 votes thank you to all of the candidates who ran, and congratulations to those assuming office in the coming weeks.
[00:04:52] Article two on the ballot, which added mixed office and one family, two family or multifamily dwellings within permitted uses but limited residential uses to a maximum 49% for existing buildings.
[00:05:09] That was passed with 630 to 70.
[00:05:16] Article three, which streamlines some processes by redefining essential services, making those from special exception in all districts to an accessory use, and that streamlines the permitting process. Article three passed 634 to 54.
[00:05:41] Article four basically increases the maximum by right height of a building in the downtown d one district from 45ft to 55ft. That passed 577 to 135. Article five provides the planning board with some greater flexibility administering off street parking. Article five passed 599 to 97. Article six, a zoning amendment that made more consistent sign requirements throughout all of our zoning districts, passed 604 to 89.
[00:06:16] Now moving on to the business meeting portion of yesterday. Article seven, which was to choose the following town officers, which was John Brighton for the advisory board of Assessors Robert Grable, Matt Marshall and Sarah Pakman for as fence viewers Timothy Bent and James Kennedy for surveyors of wood and timber. Article seven, passed.
[00:06:44] Article eight, to raise and appropriate money into the Land and Capital Improvements Fund and article nine, which is the other half to that which raises and appropriates the same amount of money into the conservation fund. Both article eight and article nine, passed.
[00:07:02] Article ten, to raise and appropriate money into our municipal transportation improvement fund, passed.
[00:07:11] Article eleven, which is investments into our capital reserve funds for future capital spending, passed. Article twelve, which authorizes expenses out of the capital reserve funds through our capital budget, passed.
[00:07:31] I'll do the next articles sort of as a group here. These were all of the collective bargaining contracts, and that is articles 13 and 15 and 17, and all of those articles passed. The subsequent articles 1416 and 18.
[00:07:48] On advice of counsel we were able to pass over in the meeting because they only related to if those preceding articles had failed.
[00:08:01] Article 19, to see if the town will raise and appropriate money into the town's contingency fund, passed.
[00:08:09] Article 20, the main budget operating budget article, passed. Article 21, which would have been to delegate the authorities of cemetery trustees to the select board. So the decision, if folks recall, was that if a board was constituted, town meeting would have the choice whether to keep that constituted board. If three different individuals were elected, which they were, or they could delegate those authorities to the select board, that article failed, which means the board of cemetery trustees has been created. Article 22, which was a petition warrant article to see if the town will vote to call on the United States government to support an immediate, impermanent ceasefire in Gaza and the West bank that after a fair amount of discussion that I will not attempt to capture here, did pass.
[00:09:05] So that is the results and outcomes of Hanover's 2024 town meeting. We really appreciate, again, everybody's participation and all of the folks who put so much work into preparing everything that was discussed and making sure that the day went off smoothly. I will give an additional thank you to those folks who were at town meeting and had questions and comments and shared opinions and feelings and thoughts about different issues, and that those conversations were relatively civil and neighborly and friendly. And all of us appreciate that. All of us engaging in this sort of space together, working towards many common goals, is really critical. And I think Hanover again set an example for how to do that with such a well attended meeting with a number of different topics that people had opinions and ideas about. If you are at town meeting and or if you're listening to this and you would like to learn more about getting information or being involved in town, let me throw out a couple ideas before I sign off here. So the first is there are many different ways to stay up to date. The town has a podcast called Hanover Happenings, which if you're listening to this, I think you might be familiar with and would encourage you to subscribe to that and share it with your neighbors, family or friends if they're interested as well. We also have various town email lists that can keep you up to date on meetings and topics where you can actually sign up for automated notices by topic. Many of our meetings, such as select board and planning board meetings, are viewable online on YouTube through Junction Arts media, and there are a number of town departments that do have various social media accounts. So those are just a handful of the ways that you can stay up to date, but those are a couple good ones if you're looking for something there. The next is there are ways to work and collaborate with the town. We do a lot of work with nonprofits, with local businesses, community groups, and so you don't have to be a volunteer or staff person or official in town to work with the town. There are many different ways we work with groups such as vital communities, Hanover Improvement Society, rotary clubs, the Prouty, and so many more. So if you work with a nonprofit or community group, have an idea about things in town, please feel free to reach out to me and I can try and help get you pointed in the right direction. Of course, volunteering is another really important way to get involved. We have many boards and committees and we will be doing a big push in June and July with our boards and committees and trying to fill some vacant seats.
[00:11:53] Some of those do require multi year time commitments and can be very rewarding. But there are also plenty of ways to get involved if you have a more limited schedule too. So don't let that keep you from reaching out. We'll be happy to give you more information and of course, you can run for office as well. There are a number of elected positions, as you just heard in our town government. Often those do require a larger multi year time commitment, but like many of the other boards and committees that people are appointed to, it can be a very rewarding experience to be in a position like that. And of course, it's important to show up and vote not just on the ballot portion, but on the business meeting every year as well. So thank you again for everybody's participation, consideration of all of the warrant articles and support.
[00:12:44] Last night's meeting was a great step forward in a bunch of areas in the town government, and we appreciate and look forward to many more conversations working with all of you in the future. So, as always, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. And thanks again for engaging in what's happening in your community.
