By Lauren Dorsey, Staff Writer
At a joint meeting in early September, Woodstock’s Village Trustees and Selectboard reignited a time-worn debate: the potential merger of the town and village.
As the boards weighed whether to look into the details of a merger, their conversation echoed similar discussions that have run throughout Woodstock’s history.
Woodstock’s merger discussions date back at least seventy years, and in 1957, a merger failed by only eleven votes. The two most recent public votes on a merger were in 1983 and 2007.
1981 merger?
The Vermont Secretary of State website lists Woodstock’s town and village as merging briefly in 1981, but in fact, Woodstock’s two governments never actually joined. Around that time, Woodstock combined the town and village highway departments for a three-year trial period, but the town and village boards and the village charter were left intact.
In 1981, as in 1957, the town also received permission from the Vermont Legislature to merge should a public vote pass, but no such vote was held until 1983. Angela Valentinetti, the deputy director of the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration, told the Standard that the Secretary of State’s office plans to update its website’s list of town and village mergers to better reflect this information.
1983 public vote
In 1983, advocates for a merger argued that it would streamline government administration and more equitably distribute the tax burden among residents. Peter S. Jennison, then chair of the Woodstock Planning Commission, summarized the benefits that the commission saw for the move in a letter to the editor printed in the January 27, 1983 edition of the Standard. “As volunteers who contribute hundreds of hours a year to public service, we are constantly reminded of the existing costly duplication of time and energy in municipal administration and the management of community affairs. We believe that consolidating these functions will result in greater efficiency and lower costs of administration,” wrote Jennison.
Town residents who opposed a merger said that townspeople did not want to have to pay for the unique services that supported the village, like sidewalks and police patrols. In the Jan. 20 edition, the Standard reported that town resident John Keeling said, “They [the Villagers] have services some of us in the boondocks don’t want or need.”
In turn, Village residents who opposed the move feared that a merger could lead to cuts of those same unique services. “Any initial minor savings a village resident might gain will soon pale beside the growing cost of this merged municipality and I predict they will receive fewer services for it,” wrote Jon Dion, a South Woodstock resident, in a letter printed in the Dec. 2, 1982 edition.
Throughout the discussions, people often claimed that they felt worn out by debates on merging. Marilyn Spaulding, then chairman of the Village Zoning Board, wrote in a letter to the editor advocating for the merger in the February 3, 1983 paper, “The subject is almost as old as I am, and it appears sentiments have changed little over those years.” In the January 20 edition, town resident Joseph Dion said, “We’re sick of this crisis stuff. This proposed merger is another crisis.”
When the issue finally came to a vote on Feb. 8, 1983, the merger was defeated 619 to 417. A closer look at the votes revealed that Village residents, whose taxes would have gone down if a merger passed, approved the move 233 to 72. Town residents, whose taxes would have gone up, defeated it with a 3 to 1 margin, according to the Feb. 10, 1983 edition of the Standard.
When asked about the vote, then Village Trustee Chairman Dona Cullen said, “I wish I could be sure everybody in the town knew what the vote was all about and were not influenced by illogical arguments,” according to her comments in the Feb. 10 edition.
2007 public vote
In 2007, the divides ran along similar lines, although proponents emphasized the amount of time that had passed since the last vote. Tom Debevoise, a former selectboard member, said at a meeting in South Woodstock. “I just dropped my oldest boy Robby off for college, and I was thinking, “He wasn’t even born the last time the merger was discussed. It really is a whole generation, a whole length of time, that has passed,” according to the March 1 edition of the Standard.
Supporters of the merger argued that it would make Woodstock more business-friendly and help the government fill volunteer slots. “We are very short of qualified volunteers for our planning commission, Development Review boards, Design Review boards, and it is even difficult to find interested individuals who lived here a couple of years to run for selectboard or Trustee. I believe it will be easier to find five qualified people than 10,” wrote Marilyn Spaulding, then chairman of the Village Zoning Board, in the Feb. 22, 1983 edition. Spaulding also noted in the same letter, “since Hank Warren’s arrival in 1966 (over 40 years ago), every town manager has recommended a merger. [My] taxes may increase slightly, but that is such a small price to pay for one merged community.”
Responding to predictions that a merger would reduce the quality of services in the village, Witte Lynn, a town resident, said, “There are a lot of us in town who want the village to be a success, who want it to have lights, sidewalks, and police.” according to the March 1, 2007 edition.
Opponents were concerned that a merger would result in a loss of character for the village and increased taxes in the town. “The merger really is about giving up our individuality and control,” wrote James Kachadorian in the Feb. 22 edition of the Standard. “The village will give up its control of the special problems unique to the village. [The] last bit of individuality, independence and diversity will be lost in this place we call home.”
The town voted two weeks before the village on March 6 and defeated the measure by just eight votes, 577 to 569. Although the town’s disapproval of the merger effectively voided the village’s vote because both municipalities needed to agree for a merger to happen, Woodstock Village residents passed the merger 108 to 75 on March 20.
2024 discussion
A new round of merger discussions have just begun. In a public meeting on Sept. 5, each member of the Village Trustees and Selectboard ranked the importance of a merger on a 10-point scale. While some members strongly favored looking into a merger, others were strictly opposed.
During the discussions, several lines of argument closely paralleled past debates. Selectboard member Laura Powell, speaking in favor of the merger, pointed to the uneven distribution of taxes between the two municipalities. “I think if we’re talking about things like affordability, a merger is a key to maintaining affordability in the village,” said Powell.
Woodstock’s Municipal Manager Eric Duffy emphasized that a merger would increase administrative efficiency. “To be fully transparent, I feel I’m drowning in this job, and I feel my staff is too with the amount of work that is thrown upon us,” said Duffy during the meeting. “A merger internally would be massively helpful for the staff and the administration.”
Seton McIlroy, the chair of the Village Trustees emphasized that in recent years Woodstock has faced an onslaught of crisis after crisis. “I’m pro-merger. I’ll say it, but what I’m pro before is having some stability. In the past five years, we’ve gone through a lot,” said McIlroy during the meeting.
In an interview with the Standard after the public meeting, Jeffrey Kahn, the vice chair of the trustees, who opposed pursuing a merger, pointed to the benefits of maintaining the village’s character. “When the town went to a numbering system that was based on how far you were from the end of the road, the village opted out because we could vote separately as our own municipality,” Kahn told the Standard.
The boards closed their conversation earlier this month by promising to continue discussing the possible benefits and drawbacks of a potential merger at future meetings. “I don’t think it’s something we can ignore. It’s something that we have to at least look into and have information [on],” said Duffy, the Woodstock municipal manager, during the meeting.=