Vermonters voice their collective opinions today at town halls and high school gymnasiums as annual town meetings convene across the state. Local issues large and small fill agendas, including an effort to repeal instant-runoff voting in Burlington and a question about the continued operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. Most polls remain open until 7 p.m. Read about the most-watched issues.

Vermont’s 2010 town meeting season kicked off Saturday, with meetings in a scattering of towns. If discussion at the Isle La Motte meeting is any indication, voters pressed by a tough economy are ready to pinch public pennies. An embezzlement, budget fights and political feuds have riven this island community for three years, but on Saturday residents found something everybody could agree on: a big tax cut. By a virtually unanimous vote, attendees at the annual town meeting agreed to use the $100,000 repaid by the embezzler to cut the property tax rate from an estimated 23 cents per $100 of assessed value to 13 cents.

On Town Meeting Day next week, voters in Rutland will have a chance to weigh in on their city's $17 million budget. Historically, it fell to Rutland's board of aldermen to decide the fate of the Mayor's proposed budget. But a charter change approved last year, now allows residents to have a say. Mayor Christopher Louras says that's a good thing. But he says local residents need to understand the consequences of voting down the city's $17 million budget.

Last month marked the end of a unique art-making and public-planning project 10 months in the making. Starksboro’s "Art & Soul Civic Engagement Project" aimed to inspire public creativity and participatory decision making with the hopes of enabling residents of the small Addison County town give expression to their community identity and develop a vision for Starksboro’s future.

The Brattleboro Reformer reports that following a string of racially motivated incidents in the Brattleboro area (including the emergence of a racial hate group at Brattleboro Union High School during the spring of 2008), about thirty of Brattleboro's "community leaders and residents [have] banded together to work for a town free of discrimination and prejudice." Indeed, "Brattleboro residents and community leaders formed the Racial Issues Planning Team to help plan and organize a wide-scale plan for the town." That Team has recently decided to host a Future Search Conference in February to "further promote racial tolerance and understanding in Brattleboro." The Conference will take place over three days and will feature 64 representatives "from all different backgrounds within the community." Those representatives will discuss the past, present and future of discrimination and prejudice issues in Brattleboro" and brainstorm a list of practical ways to address discrimination and intolerance.

Link to article

The Brattleboro Reformer reports that Melinda Bussino, executive director of the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center, was recognized this week as Vermont's Housing Hero at the biannual Vermont Statewide Housing Conference. "The award is given out at the conference, which is held every other year, to one person who has made a significant and lasting contribution to promoting safe and affordable housing for low and moderate income Vermonters." According to Vermont Housing Finance Agency public affairs manager John Fairbanks, "Bussino was chosen this year not only for the number of years she has put in at the Drop In Center, but also for the level of success she has had working with low income individuals and families in the Brattleboro area." Notably, "during Bussino's time as head of Drop In Center, the local food shelf has grown to become a day shelter, a source of income for the under-employed, and a place to find clothing, make a call or clean up."

Link to article

Vermont Public Radio reports that Vermonters head to the polls on Tuesday, September 9, 2008, for the state primary. "Voters will decide their party's nominees for statewide offices and the legislature. Secretary of State Deb Markowitz says polling places are not likely to see the same large turnout as the March presidential primary." She explained, "Turnout in a primary is driven by the ballot. The more contested races there are in a ballot, the higher up the ticket they are, the more people that come out. And in fact this is a pretty sleepy primary." She concluded that she "expects a similar turnout to the 2006 statewide primary when 19 percent of registered voters went to the polls. "

Link to article

Update on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at 09:53AM by VCF Staff

Vermont primary drew only 8.5 percent turnout

Vermont Public Radio reports that "voter turnout in last week's Vermont primary election was only 8.5 percent, which officials say is the lowest in recent memory." Indeed, "36,716 of the state's registered voters cast ballots in the election, almost two-thirds of them in the Democratic primary." The lack of contested races on the ballot may be the reason why many people stayed home.

Link to article

Vermont Public Radio reports that a telephone survey conducted last winter by the the University of Vermont's Center for Rural Studies has found that  Vermonters cherish the state's working landscape, its sense of community, and its independence. The survey was conducted for the Council on the Future of Vermont which has spent several months holding forums around the state to explore Vermonters' values, challenges, opportunities, and priorities. Of the 700 people questioned for the survey, 97 percent said they value the state's landscape and heritage, and 93 percent said they are proud of living in Vermont. The respondents also said that "Vermont's future is bright" but worried about things that threaten Vermont's values including "the cost of living, high tax rates, and the difficulty of surviving as a farmer." Notably, "the council's goal over the next six months is to take all of this information and use it to tell Vermonters what their neighbors think about the state of affairs" in the state. The Council hopes that the infomration will "give policymakers and average citizens the perspective that will help them preserve their values and solve future challenges."

Link to article

The Times Argus reports that "Vermont had the third highest turnout among the voting-eligible population of any state, right behind New Hampshire right behind New Hampshire and Ohio." Indeed, "more than 40 percent of eligible voters cast a primary ballot, according to a new Pew Center on the States report." The turnot also set a state record. "For comparison, the last two presidential election years, 2004 and 2000, had 23 percent and 29 percent turnout respectively."

"This year's turnout was likely a reflection of the fact that the contest between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton was very much alive." Richard Mallary, a former U.S. Representative from Vermont, also commented that "the fact that Vermont's presidential primary coincides with town meetings may also increase turnout relative to other states."

Link to article

The Burlington Free Press reports that a dozen graduate students at St. Michael's College have teamed up to produce several art pieces in hopes of encouraging youth to vote. They designed an "up-with-voting mural -- six cartoon-like panels that tout the virtues of ballot-casting. Some of the panels depict stories about voting that the students gathered from friends, neighbors and relatives." The students created the mural as part of the College's master's program for art educators. Notably, "every year the class comes up with a civic-engagement project." For example, "last year, students worked with children at the Committee on Temporary Shelter to make books showing life experiences."

Link to article

Vermont Public Radio reports that while "Vermont has suffered the highest proportion of casualties from the Iraq War of any state...it leads the nation in helping service members when they come home." Lieutenant Colonel John Boyd, who leads the veterans' outreach program in Vermont, acknowledged that "state officials faced some special challenges in getting those returning vets the care they needed." That's because "in states such as Vermont, which are rural and do not have any active duty military installations, [National Guard and reserve service members] can experience challenges with awareness of and access to mental health and other benefits when they return from deployment." Today,  "Vermont veterans serve as caseworkers to help other, newly returned vets. They meet face to face in their own homes, where they are more likely to open up than in a military facility."

Link to article

The Burlington Free Press reports that the Front Porch Forum (www.frontporchforum.com) is a digital neighborhood where neighbors can come together online for free to "communicate and connect through e-mail newsletters." Michael and Valerie Wood-Lewis, who moved to Burlington from Washington, D.C. 10 years ago, started the online forum in 2000 for their Burlington neighborhood. The forum has since expanded to include 130 neighborhood forums in Chittenden County and 10,000 subscribers. "On the forum, neighbors, who are identifiable by name and street address, post information or questions on a range of issues. The topics, whether a missing cat or a hazardous cross-walk, are typically bound by the interests and parameters of the neighborhood" and "the combined forums generate about 2,000 messages a month." Notably, "the Front Porch Forum has received national recognition for its work, including grants from the Middlebury-based Orton Family Foundation and the Case Foundation." Orton also "selected the Forum for its 2007 Innovator in Place award."

Link to article

Vermont Public Radio reports that about 200 Brattleboro residents including teachers, police officers, community leaders and many members of the biracial community "turned out for a community forum on racism in Brattleboro, where the discovery of a racist group and the arrest of a teenager on hate crime charges has shaken people up." The event was designed to "gauge community sentiment on how the recent incidents had affected people, and what should be done about racism in the community." Attendees said "they were relieved to see the large turnout of support. But others said talking to like-minded people would not solve the problem."

Update on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 09:19AM by VCF Staff

Students Fight Racism with Technology
The Rutland Herald reports that high schools students in Brattleboro are "using technology to keep a recent racist incident from igniting further problems." Last week the students "launched a text-messaging campaign to keep fellow students informed, and prevent misinformation and rumor from boiling over into violence." According to Curtiss Reed Jr., the executive director of ALANA, a local civil rights organization, and chairman of the Vermont State Advisory Committee on Civil Rights, "The kids are telling each other 'avoid, ignore, resist, [and] don't respond."

The campaign comes in response to recent racist incidents in Brattleboro, "which included the formation of an informal student club, whose very name includes a threat of violence and a racial epithet. Last week, a 17-year-old Guilford student was placed on house arrest after he was charged with two hate crimes, including aggravated stalking with a deadly weapon and disorderly conduct, as well as two other alleged crimes." In addition, the Vernon Police are "investigating several racist signs left in town.

Link to article

The Times Argus reports that the Vermont State Advisory Committee "heard testimony from law enforcement officers, lawyers, academics and alleged victims of racial profiling during a four-hour hearing Thursday in the Billings Lounge on the University of Vermont campus." The hearing represents "the first in a series planned around the state. The committee will use the information it gathers to write a report, which will likely include recommendations to the Vermont Legislature and law-enforcement organizations"  on how racial profiling relates to law enforcement, other aspects of the judicial system, health care, other public accommodations. Notably, the hearings were spurred in part by a 2004 study by the ALANA Community Organization, "a group that works to build 'inclusive and equitable' communities." According to the ALANA report, "minority households in Brattleboro had a higher incident of contact with police than non-minority households."

Link to article

The Rutland Herald reports that the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board has been "awarded more than $1 million in financial aid through a federal grant from the Corporation for National and Community Services." The three-year grant will "be used to continue the Vermont Community Stewardship Program, an AmeriCorps program." Currently the program has "34 AmeriCorps full- and part-time members [placed] at 25 sponsoring nonprofit organizations in the state...for one-year service periods." These participating nonprofits "address housing and environmental needs ."

Link to article