Select Board fills openings on town boards; holds May 5 meeting at fire station for VTrans bridge presentation
May 1, 2025 | By Lisa Scagliotti Special note: The Waterbury Select Board meets next on Monday, May 5, at 6:30 p.m. at the Main Street fire station. Representatives from the Vermont Agency of Transportation will attend to present information about the Stowe Street bridge replacement project scheduled to begin this month, with completion expected in the fall. The project will involve a multi-week road closure and detour. See more information from VTrans online here and read a related story from UVM’s Community News Service here. The board meeting agenda will be posted soon here, with a Zoom link to participate online.
The Waterbury Select Board approved many appointments to town boards and commissions at its April 21 meeting and fine-tuned term lengths for one of its newest boards, the Housing Task Force.
Most positions on the municipal volunteer bodies have terms ending on April 30, so this is the time of year for those serving to potentially request to be reappointed and for new members to join.
Below is a recap of the nominations and appointments made. Applications and letters of interest from the various candidates were posted online with the April 21 meeting agenda here. In their letters, the applicants share their life and work experiences and thoughts regarding serving on a municipal board.
Following the appointments, several positions remain open and are noted in each section of the list below.
Planning Commission: Members Dana Allen and Robbie Adler both were unanimously reappointed to three-year terms.
Development Review Board: Members Harry Shepard, Alex Tolstoi and George Lester all applied to continue to serve on the DRB. The select board voted unanimously to appoint all three to three-year terms and to appoint Brooks Fortune to a two-year alternate position on the board. Fortune recently was one of four applicants for two vacant Waterbury seats on the Harwood School Board but was not selected.
Conservation Commission: Members Meg Baldor and Rachel Campbell expressed interest in being reappointed to the commission. The select board voted 4-0 to appoint them, along with adding new member Annemarie Fortune, all to four-year terms. Chair Alyssa Johnson abstained, citing that Baldor and Campbell had not submitted formal applications.
Recreation Committee: Members Phoebe Pelkey and Emma Lenchner applied to be reappointed. The select board voted unanimously to appoint them along with Brooks Fortune to three-year terms. A seat with one year remaining on the term is still open.
Natural Disaster Preparedness Committee: Member John Malter requested to be reappointed. The select board voted unanimously to appoint him to a three-year term and new applicant Emily Gilde to a two-year term.
Tree Board: Three seats were due to be filled by appointment. Board member Barbara Blauvelt applied to continue to serve. The select board voted unanimously to appoint her to a three-year term. Two seats on this board – a three-year term and another with two years remaining – are still open.
Housing Task Force
There was much discussion regarding the Housing Task Force structure and composition. Created in 2022, the group first began meeting in January 2023, so this is one of the town’s newer volunteer advisory groups and its makeup is somewhat unique. Its membership by design is intended to represent various stakeholders regarding housing issues in the community.
It is comprised of: a member of the Waterbury Select Board, a member of the Edward Farrar Utility District Board of Commissioners, a Planning Commission member or appointee, and a representative of the nonprofit community and economic development organization Revitalizing Waterbury.
It will also include up to six members from the community appointed by the select board. Those positions are intended to represent a variety of interests and backgrounds related to housing, such as those working in affordable housing development, private development, energy efficiency, and social services or those experienced in addressing homelessness.
At the April 21 meeting, the select board voted to clarify several aspects of the task force composition: It agreed that the RW appointee would be subject to approval by the select board; it approved specifying that the members representing the three town boards (select board, EFUD and Planning Commission appointees) serve for the duration of their office term that their task force appointment is based on.
When the task force was initially established, no term lengths were set. The select board last week also established term lengths for the six other task force positions, making two three-year seats, two two-year seats, and two one-year seats. The board agreed that its intent is to transition all of those seats to three-year terms with them staggered so as not to all expire in the same year.
In all of the votes pertaining to the Housing Task Force, both board Chair Alyssa Johnson and member Roger Clapp abstained – Johnson given that she’s the board’s appointee to the task force, and Clapp because he is employed by Revitalizing Waterbury as executive director and supervises that organization’s member on the task force.
The remaining three select board members – Vice Chair Kane Sweeney, Mike Bard and Tori Taravella – all voted unanimously on the following appointments:
Reappointing Chris Balzano and adding Jess Neubelt each to three-year seats;
Reappointing Joe Camaratta and Eliza Novik-Smith each to two-year seats;
Reappointing Johnson as the select board’s designee;
Approving Owen Sette-Ducati, economic development director at RW, for the Revitalizing Waterbury task force seat.
The Housing Task Force still has two one-year positions open.
Early in the public comment portion of the meeting, Waterbury resident Valerie Rogers questioned whether Johnson’s participation on the Housing Task Force and Clapp’s role as RW’s top administrator had the potential to pose conflicts of interest.
Clapp noted that he would not participate in select board matters that involve RW. He and Johnson also emphasized that the task force does not make town policy – it serves in an advisory role to the select board, where policy is determined.
Anyone interested in volunteering to be appointed to the remaining vacant positions on the Recreation Committee, Tree Board, or Housing Task Force should fill out an application form and submit it with a letter of interest to Municipal Manager Tom Leitz at tleitz@waterburyvt.com.
The select board has several other appointments to make this year to regional entities such as the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission and the Mad River Resource Management Alliance. Those spots will be announced closer to their appointment dates.