Granville Will Hold Hearings
On Proposed Charter Change
By Martha Slater

On Thursday, Dec. 7 at 7 p.m., the Granville Town Hall will be the site of the first of two public hearings at which Granville voters can consider proposed amendments to the town charter, allowing the town the option of choosing a town clerk and treasurer who is not a Granville resident.

Granville’s current charter states that "the town shall choose from among its legally qualified voters a town clerk for a term of three years." The first proposed amendment would change that to read "the voters of the Town of Granville may elect a town clerk who is not a legally qualified voter in the town of Granville, but who is a legally qualified voter in the State of Vermont." The second proposed amendment uses the same language to apply to the position of town treasurer.

The changes were proposed by Granville Selectboard chair Norm Arseneault, who says that in the nine years he has been on the board, one of his main missions has been to get the town’s finances in good working order. He points out that "larger towns might have two people acting as town clerk and treasurer, instead of just one as we have, and part-time at that. The treasurer part of the position is the most critical piece since that person needs the expertise to handle the town’s finances."

"Even for a small town, with only 206 official residents, it gets to be a very complicated matter and it’s the town treasurer’s actual responsibility to keep it all straight," Arseneault adds. "With the fact that we’ve got relatively few qualified people to apply for the job at any time we need to change to a new town clerk/treasurer, you can't necessarily count on having someone living in town that can do that job and is also available.

"For example, last year when Paula Roth moved out of town, we solicited candidates and had three applicants, but by the time we had Town Meeting in March, there was only one applicant left for townspeople to vote for."

Michael Cunningham was elected town clerk and treasurer in March 2006 and in the months since that time, Arseneault says that the selectboard was never presented with a monthly financial statement or fiscal year end report that they were willing to approve. On November 20, Cunningham submitted his formal letter of resignation.

"One thing the selectboard found that we needed to do during the time when we weren’t getting adequate financial reports was to hire a bookkeeper, who is under contact with the board to bring us financial statements," Arseneault said. The board hired Roth to do this and those statements are on file at the town clerk’s office as a matter of public record.

Voter Petition

Back in October 2005, the Granville Selectboard received a petition signed by 20 voters asking the board to undertake to amend the town charter. That petition asked that the board to be allowed to appoint a town clerk and town treasurer from out of town if need be.

Arseneault told The Herald that he and his fellow board members, Kristi Tate and Rodney Brown, "were uncomfortable with that because it put all the power on the selectboard, so we talked with the petitioners and they agreed to retract their request. So, now that we’ve decided to try to do this, we know we have at least a number of people in town who think that a change in the charter might be desirable."

"After the difficulties we’ve had the past year trying to keep track of our finances, the board itself is proposing a charter change," he continued.

When this proposal was brought up at the Nov. 6 selectboard meeting, however, it generated a lengthy and heated discussion. The half dozen or so people attending the meeting were all opposed to the change and actively tried to get the board to decide not to pursue it.

One of those who expressed opposition was Vivian Branschofsky, who told The Herald later that, "I think the person who is our town clerk should have a vested interest in our town because he or she lives here, too. The board voted to go ahead with this process before bringing it before the town. To change our charter is a big deal and I think it’s a bad idea. Better pay would make a big difference in attracting a qualified person, too."

Arseneault says he "took the position that there is a process that is laid out in the statutes for a town to decide if it wants this kind of a charter or not and it involves at least two public hearings and an Australian ballot vote. It was my contention that we should let all the voters of the town decide this issue and not just those who were at the meeting, so the board voted to continue to pursue the charter process."

The board also had a special meeting Nov. 16 at which it appointed town residents Kathy Werner as town clerk/treasurer and Heather Needham as her assistant, until Town Meeting in March 2007.

Hearings Planned

The first step in pursuing a charter change was to publish legal warnings for the initial public hearing, Dec. 7, as well as for the second hearing on Thursday, Dec. 14. Chris Sargent of the Two Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Commission will facilitate both hearings. An Australian ballot informational meeting will take place as part of the Monday, Jan. 8 selectboard meeting. The Australian ballot vote will take place Tuesday, Jan. 9.

If voters say yes to the proposed changes, the amendments will then have to be approved by the state legislature, since what the town would be asking for is really a change in a state law.

According to Steve Jeffery of the Vt. League of Cities and Towns, about six to eight charter changes come before the legislature each year and "most of them pass." He notes that only about 40 cities and towns in the state have actual charters and the others operate under basic state law.

"I don’t know of any towns who do have charters that allow a non-resident to serve as town clerk," Jeffrey told The Herald. "Basic state law requires towns to choose their clerks ‘from among duly qualified voters.’"

Arseneault’s opinion is that, "from a big picture standpoint, this change makes sense for the town of Granville and it doesn’t take any authority away from the voters to elect who they want to elect."

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