By STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—The OVUU School Board has voted to hold a floor vote on transfer of land for the proposed “Valley Community Center” VCC at its annual meeting on Wednesday, February 26 at 6:30 p.m. at Otter Valley Union High School.
VCC would provide indoor recreation space to all the towns that feed into the RNESU school district. According to the plan, these seven communities—Brandon, Pittsford, Sudbury, Leicester, Whiting, Goshen, and Chittenden—would share an indoor recreation and exercise complex that would provide residents with recreational opportunities that the area currently lacks.
VCC would be centrally located on the Otter Valley campus, on land granted by the district, and would be managed by a nonprofit created specifically for the purpose, whose board would comprise members from each participating town. VCC would encompass an indoor gymnasium with basketball and pickleball courts, a walking track, weight and cardio rooms, a snack stand, first-aid station, and a flexible, multi-use meeting room.
When the idea was first proposed last October, the OVUU Board decided to leave the decision whether to grant permission to use the district’s land to the voters in the district. The assumption on the Board was that the question could be placed on the Australian ballot on Town Meeting Day along with the proposed school budget.
However, at last week’s OVUU Board meeting, the Board was informed by RNESU Business Director Brenda Fleming that the only questions permitted by law to appear on the Australian ballot were those relating to the budget or to the election of the School Board. Any question relating to the grant of land to VCC would have to be conducted as a floor vote at OVUU’s annual meeting on February 26.
This raised concerns among the Board that an important decision could be left to the historically small number of people who attend the district’s annual meeting. The Board feared that however the vote went, a significant segment of the community would end up feeling like they had not had a say in the decision.
The land in question is a 10-acre parcel along the western side of Route 7 on the southern end of the OV campus, past the last driveway into the OV parking lot. OVUU Chair Laurie Bertrand said last Tuesday that the parcel didn’t have any real value to OV but that it wasn’t the Board’s to give away; the decision had to come from the voters.
The question that will be put before voters at the meeting is:
“Shall the voters approve the Unified Union District’s conveyance of a +/-10-acre parcel of land along the easterly boundary of the Otter Valley Union High School (OVUHS) property and southerly of the OVUHS’s access driveways, in exchange of One Dollar ($1.00), to the Valley Community Center (VCC), contingent on VCC securing sufficient funds by March 30, 2027 to construct a community center or recreation facility with related improvements southerly of the OVUHS access driveways with no additional Unified Union District financial commitment to the property or to VCC?”
If voters approve the conveyance, VCC must still secure the funding for the project by March 30, 2027 or the conveyance is voided. VCC had initially said that it planned to ask the voters of the constituent towns to approve bonds to fund the project. The total cost of the project is estimated to be $12.1 million.
