By Lauren Dorsey, Staff Writer
In a special town meeting Tuesday night with one of the largest turnouts in two decades, Woodstock residents overwhelmingly voted in favor of acquiring the Woodstock Aqueduct Company (WAC). “We knew a lot of people cared about it, but to see us fill up the [Town Hall] theater and the upstairs conference room and then every kind of space in between was surprising,” said Woodstock Selectboard member Laura Powell.
The final tally came out with a margin of almost four to one, with 383 votes in favor of acquiring the water system and 103 against. “We were not expecting that amount of people to come,” said Woodstock Municipal Manager Eric Duffy. “We’re very excited that so many people showed up and supported this.”
Accommodating such a large — and unexpected — turnout did present a few problems. As seats filled in the theater, staff and board members directed voters to watch the meeting from an overflow room upstairs. “We were not prepared, and Town Hall is not facilitated to have an overflow, so the folks upstairs couldn’t hear on the Zoom what was happening, and they also couldn’t interact or make a motion without coming downstairs,” said Powell. “Thankfully, we got to a place where there wasn’t a lot of discussion, and the motion was made on the floor early on to have the vote.”
Once voting began, a new string of difficulties arose, as the line to cast paper ballots was lengthy. A number of aspiring voters began to trickle out of Town Hall after the first few minutes, giving up on the process when it became apparent that voting would take a while. “It took a long time to get 485 people through the voting line, checked and registered,” said Charlie Kimbell, who was the facilitator of the Water Working Group that assessed the acquisition. “[But] democracy is messy. Sometimes the whole voting process is a little messy.”
After almost 18 months of discussions about possibly acquiring the WAC, the town’s timeline to prepare and announce the vote had been cut short by a state-imposed deadline. The selectboard had originally planned to hold Tuesday’s vote in November, but the state notified Duffy that the town had to decide on the acquisition by the end of October in order to be able to use some of the grant money, totaling $288,000, allocated for the purchase.
With that in mind, the selectboard announced its proposed plan to acquire the company on September 23 — just 36 days before the vote took place.
To spread the word about the potential acquisition and to fight misinformation and division on the town’s listserv, the selectboard pioneered a new, experimental method of connecting with voters.
In addition to holding normal public meetings at the Woodstock Town Hall, Duffy and members of the board hosted 38 public forums, in coffee shops, bars, pizza restaurants, and farmers markets, all across town. “I think the selectboard’s decision to ignore the listserv and hold 38 public forums over a month really showed people that we were being transparent and wanted to engage with them on a person-to-person level,” said Duffy.
Woodstock resident Susie Stutlz agrees. “The vote [speaks] to the selectboard’s dedication to engage with every community member,” wrote Stultz in a statement to the Standard. “That level of commitment is no small feat, and it shows how determined they are to empower our community to shape its own future.”
In the aftermath of Tuesday’s decision, the town is now set to purchase the WAC for a total of $920,000, the entirety of which will go toward paying off the company’s existing debt. The funds for the sale will come out of two different streams. The first source will be two state grants, together totaling $463,000, and the remaining $457,000 will come out of Woodstock’s undesignated fund balance. “I believe that the best thing for the town’s future is for the town to own the water system,” said WAC president Jireh Billings in an interview Wednesday morning. “I’m very optimistic that we’re on the right track and the numbers in the vote makes me think that the work that the Select Board and the town manager have done to get all this out to the public really paid off.”
However, purchasing the WAC is just the beginning.“The deed is not done,” Kimbell told the Standard. “This is the first step of a number of steps that have to be taken in terms of making improvements to the aqueduct system.”
A second public vote, on Dec. 10, will determine whether the town will acquire the Vondell Reservoir. That vote will also decide which aqueduct-related capital projects Woodstock will invest in. “The big step is going to be defining who pays for [those projects],” said Kimbell. “It’s going to be a hard discussion to determine who should pay. There are a lot of opinions on [it].”
For those who voted against the acquisition, the December vote offers a second chance to make their voices heard. “The final tally of the vote was pretty unambiguous,” said resident William Boardman, who has been a vocal critic of the purchase. “The Town still has the opportunity to implement a water system that does equal right and justice to all persons, so we’ll see.”
Caroline Olsen, a resident who also advocated against the acquisition as planned, is looking ahead as well. “Having the town own the water system is in the best interest of the entire community, so I am happy about that aspect of the vote outcome,” said Olsen in a written statement to the Standard. “However, the cost distribution was unjust; and the water system was not given a proper valuation. Hopefully, the town will fairly allocate costs of the water system going forward.”
“I would like to thank the Woodstock water working group, Town manager Eric Duffy, and the select board for all their hard work in the past month, said Ray Bourgeois, the chair of the selectboard.
I would also like to thank the citizens of Woodstock for attending some of the multiple meetings we held throughout the last month asking thoughtful questions and discussing the need and reasons the town had to own the aqueduct.”
Duffy explained that after taking a week off to rest and recuperate, the selectboard plans to continue their new method of outreach leading up to the Dec. 10 vote. “We’re back at it next week, being out places and talking to people about what the votes can look like,” said Duffy.
“We have a lot ahead of us, but I think that tonight shows we have the community’s support in getting the hard work done,” said Powell. “This is a really exciting time for Woodstock. [People] are rallying in our community to change the way things have been done, and to help our government and our community better meet the needs of the people within it, and I’m really excited about that.”