By MITCHELL PEARL
In past years, Otter Valley Unified Union (OVUU) District annual school meetings have rarely seen more than a few attendees. This year was different, with about 400 voters in attendance and more participating on Zoom. There was a traffic jam getting into the driveway at Otter Valley Union High School, and parking was hard to find. It was a “Standing Room Only” crowd in the auditorium. The draw was the agenda item to potentially convey property for a proposed community center. OVUU’s attorneys had determined that this item could not be voted by Australian ballot, but rather needed to be voted on the floor of the meeting. The issue was advertised in this paper, in Chamber of Commerce newsletters, and received significant attention on Front Porch Forum. People showed up.
Our local town clerks and assistants anticipated a crowd and were well-prepared to check in voters efficiently. Folks were asked to move over in their seats and pick up their coats to allow maximum seating. Despite the crowds, the meeting started only a few minutes late with Bill Moore from Brandon elected as moderator. The “Valley Community Center” (VCC) issue was listed as item seven on the agenda, but a motion was made and passed to take up that issue first.
OVUU School Board Chair Laurie Bertrand started the matter with a brief introduction. The VCC committee had approached the OV Board about the project last October. The VCC would provide indoor recreation space to all the towns that feed into the 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. The VCC committee believed the best centrally located site would be on the Otter Valley campus, on land granted by the district. The facility would be managed by a nonprofit created specifically for the purpose, whose board would comprise members from each participating town. As Ms. Bertrand explained, 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. Ms. Bertrand believed that the parcel did not have any real value to OV but that it was not the Board’s to give away and this was an issue that the voters of the district should decide.
Alia Dick spoke as a member of the VCC committee to give further background. She said the mission of the VCC volunteer group was to “develop a concept for a community center that serves all ages and income levels and enhances the fabric of the community by providing a gathering space for community functions that are not otherwise available.” Also, Ms. Dick stated that the concept must be feasible to as many people in the community as possible. The first step, according to the VCC committee, was to determine the location. Issues of design, cost, and funding could not be addressed meaningfully until the location was identified.
Answering questions from voters in the audience, Tanner Romano, a member of the VCC, clarified that the VCC was not yet a legal entity and that initially the VCC was simply looking for a pledge from OVUUSD for the land so they could continue with a feasibility study. Brenda Fleming, OVUU’s business manager, stated that pledging land was essentially the same as conveying and that therefore the current vote was needed. In answer to many questions about the details of the facility, Mr. Romano explained that most details had not yet been worked out, and that they were only at the beginning stages of doing a feasibility study, so he was unprepared to answer specific question regarding things like water supply, septic, and curb cuts.
A number of individuals commented that perhaps the proposal was not well-enough developed to bring to the voters. One voter stated colorfully, “Perhaps we are getting ahead of our skis.” Other voters believed that the wording of the article was too vague. Recognizing that the conveyance of land was contingent on obtaining funding, there was not a specification in the article as to how much funding was needed, nor a mechanism to decide when the contingency was met.
Some audience members questioned the need for such a facility, while others spoke forcefully in support of the need. But many focused on whether there was enough information for voters to make a decision, since the details of the facility, its cost, and how it would be run had not yet been determined.
One issue that had been raised on social media—that membership in the facility would be limited to a small number and that mandatory fees would be prohibitive to some in the community—was vehemently denied by the VCC volunteers. Someone had taken information from a “slide” out of context: membership would not be limited, and no decisions had been made on what type of fees might be charged. One voter in attendance accused the VCC of “lying to us,” which the moderator ruled out of order.
After about an hour, a motion to end debate was made and passed. There had also been a vote to decide the question by paper ballot. The town clerks had anticipated this and were ready. In orderly fashion, voters traipsed back out to the lobby, traded their paper voting cards for ballots, and deposited them in ballot boxes. The clerks caried the ballot boxes to the stage and proceeded to count ballots while the audience watched. The article failed, with 260 “no” votes to 121 “yes” votes.
The meeting reconvened at about 8 p.m. to consider the remaining items on the agenda. While most of the voters in attendance left after the VCC vote, a number stayed—indeed quite a few more than usually attend annual school meetings. After some housekeeping matters, the main issue to take up on the agenda was the budget presentation. School Board Chair Laurie Bertrand gave a detailed presentation of the budget with visual accompaniment of graphs and charts. The proposed budget for the whole district is $28,022,999, which is up 4.53% from last year. Student counts are projected to slightly increase from last year, and average per-pupil spending is lower than the state average. A number of positions have been cut.
Members of the school board, Superintendent Rene Sanchez, and Business Manager Brenda Fleming then fielded questions regarding staffing levels, health insurance, and district-wide data management. Superintendent Sanchez stressed how important it was for the district to standardize and modernize its data management, as the district has outmoded systems that go back to the era before the various schools were consolidated into one district. This has necessitated adding a data-management position in RNESU’s central office. Health-insurance costs are projected to increase 11.9%—which is a smaller increase than last year’s 16% increase. The district pays 80% of health insurance costs, which cannot be changed as it is pursuant to an arbitration order.
While the school budget, as usual, was subjected to close scrutiny from voters, one voter commented that “there is nothing more important than having a strong school system.” Thanking the administration and members of the board, he stated, “you are doing everything right.”
