Williston Observer

Officials say environmental study will continue

By Greg Elias
Observer staff

State and federal officials plan to appeal a court ruling that required a costly environmental study and halted construction of the Circumferential Highway in Williston.

The officials announced last week that they had filed a notice of appeal. The notice is a precursor to the appeal. The U.S. Solicitor General must first determine if the appeal can proceed before a court considers the matter.

The filing comes more than two years after U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions ruled that the 18-year-old environmental impact statement for the project was outdated. A coalition of environmental groups argued that a new study was needed because the existing document failed to account for changes in the area since the 1980s.

The updated study was originally scheduled to be completed this fall. The completion date has since been moved back to spring 2007, a delay that will add $1 million to the study’s original $6.3 million budget.

With the study nearing the finish line, the appeal seems oddly timed. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City is expected to take more than a year to rule on the appeal, well after the study is completed.

The appeal is not intended to stop the environmental study, said state Transportation Secretary Neale Lunderville. Instead, he said, it is aimed at settling precedents that could affect future highway projects.

“The state wants to clarify parts of Judge Sessions’ ruling, especially as it pertains to other projects around the state,” Lunderville said.

Specifically, Lunderville said, the legal action could affect how the state looks at cumulative and indirect impacts of proposed highways. But he acknowledged the ruling would probably not alter any current or planned project.

The appeal and the study are “really on parallel tracks,” Lunderville said. The study will continue while the state awaits a decision on the appeal.

The notice of appeal was filed now in order to preserve the right to further litigate the matter. Sessions’ originally ruled on the case in May 2004. Vermont transportation and Federal Highway Administration officials asked him to reconsider the decision, but Sessions did not affirm his ruling until July of this year. The state and federal governments then had 60 days to file notice of appeal.

Brian Dunkiel, a lawyer representing Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative, a coalition of groups opposed to the Circ, said he was confounded by the appeal.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “All it’s going to do is waste taxpayers’ money with continued expensive litigation. Transportation dollars are in high demand and short supply right now.”

The Circumferential Highway was first proposed more than 20 years ago as a 16-mile divided highway running from Williston to Colchester. At issue in the legal battle is the segment that would start at Interstate 89 in Williston and connect to the existing stretch of Circ at Vermont 117 in Essex.

That environmental study now underway, however, has cleared the way for alternatives in Williston. The dozens of options considered at the study’s outset have been narrowed to eight alternatives that fall into four broad categories: build the Circ Highway as originally designed; construct a boulevard-style road along the Circ route; widen Vermont 2A and/or replace traffic lights with roundabouts; or combine elements of both plans. A no-build option also remains a possibility.

The boulevard and roundabout options were proposed by the Smart Growth Collaborative.

The environmental study will culminate with one of the options being picked as the so-called “preferred alternative.”

Though he vowed the study would continue despite legal uncertainties, Lunderville left open the possibility that the appeal could affect what is actually built. But he denied the appeal is a strategy to avoid constructing anything but the Circ if the study concludes one of the alternatives makes more sense.

Dunkiel suggested that politics may have prompted the appeal, noting Gov. Jim Douglas has long supported building the Circ as originally planned. The Douglas administration has repeatedly clashed with groups in the Smart Growth Collaborative.

Lunderville said the appeal will be worth the expense if it helps the state avoid future court battles.

“It makes sense from a financial perspective to hear from the court so we don’t make the same mistake again,” Lunderville said.

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A year later, Hurricane Rita still felt

By Kim Howard
Observer staff

The Gulf Coast was still reeling from Hurricane Katrina when Rita, the most intense hurricane on record for the Gulf of Mexico, hit last year on Sept. 24. Less than two months later, 2,900 pounds of supplies from Williston residents were headed to Abbeville, La., as the culmination of the Vermont to Louisiana School-to-School Helping project.

“Everything was used,” Jennifer McRee, a fourth grade teacher in Abbeville, said. “What we didn’t hand out at schools to families or teachers, we gave to a service center.”

McRee, a friend of Williston resident Nancy Kahn, had told Kahn last fall that her school and others nearby could use assistance when she learned that Alison Kahn, then 10, was looking for a way to help people affected by the hurricanes. McRee’s school, James A. Herrod Elementary in Abbeville, had taken in between 250 and 300 students from nearby Henry Elementary School due to extensive damage there.

“Almost everybody had a family member or a friend who had lost a house,” McRee said. “At one time in my household, I had three families, from September until January. We were like 10 people in a house. And that’s how the majority of the houses were all around here.”

Alison and her mother organized the supplies project with teachers in Allen Brook Elementary School’s Vista classroom team. Students were encouraged to bring in games, toys, clothes and school supplies from the greater Williston community to send to Louisiana. Land Air Express of New England donated a driver and freight truck to take the goods free of charge.

“The kids unloaded the boxes,” McRee said of the elementary school students sharing a school. “They were just very touched by how much people were willing to help others. … It really helped with spirit, you know. At one point people were really down; just knowing that people were out there supporting them helped them push through it.”

McRee said the games and the books were the fastest to be picked up by teachers who had lost most or all of their teaching materials; though federal funding existed to re-order school supplies, it was not made available until the end of the school year. McRee said also it was a relief when teachers could hand out coats to kids who no longer had one.

Each item meant a lot to the recipient, McRee said.

“Those kids who got those games lost everything – their bed, their pillow, their toy – everything,” McRee said. “So to be able to get one toy that they could play with was like Christmas to them. They were so excited for that one little thing.”

McRee said even now many people still are living in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or in extended stay hotels, while trying to rebuild their houses. Builders and those with carpenter skills, however, are in short supply. Henry Elementary School never re-opened; those area schools that did could not re-open until March of this year.

The outpouring of community support from such faraway places as Williston touched McRee, too, she said.

“Knowing what people did for us made me and others around here want to help others more,” she said. “When people call and ask for donations, I’m ready to give now, because I know how much we needed it at that time.

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Observer staff report

Twenty-nine candidates will vie for 15 slots to be Williston’s next Justices of the Peace.

As of last Friday’s filing deadline, 15 Democratic and 14 Republican names had been submitted for inclusion on the ballot for the Nov. 7 general election. No Independent candidates or candidates from other parties filed.

“It used to be that each party nominates half the number (of slots),” Town Clerk Deb Beckett said, referring to the Democratic and Republican parties. “But what happens now is both parties nominate all 15.”

Justices of the Peace are commonly believed to be the people who perform civil unions and weddings, but in fact few in Williston do. Currently, only three of 15 Justices – Jim McCullough, Tony Lamb and Bill Skiff – conduct ceremonies.

Justices have two significant responsibilities to the towns in which they serve. Along with Selectboard members, they serve as the Board of Civil Authority, or the officials responsible for overseeing elections. Voters most commonly see Justices of the Peace when they check in to vote or when they submit their ballot in the ballot box.

Justices of the Peace also serve as a quasi-judicial board, hearing property tax appeals when a reappraisal is conducted, and hearing requests from residents who cannot afford to pay their property taxes by the stated deadline.

The two-year term begins in February after a candidate has been elected.

Democratic candidates for Williston Justices of the Peace are as follows: Steve Bradish*, Meg Hart-Smith, Jeanne Jenson, Ted Kenney, Tony Lamb*, Ginny Lyons*, Terry Macaig*, Jim McCullough*, Andy Mikell*, Ruth Painter, Mary Peterson*, Ben Rose*, Carter Smith*, Gordon St. Hilaire, and Tom Vieth. Republican candidates are as follows: Patrice Clark, Marion Cushner, Brennan Duffy, George Gerecke*, Herb Goodrich*, Andrew Guernsey, James Haug, Virginia Morton, Shelley Palmer, Michael Quaid*, Christopher Roy, William Skiff*, Ruth Stokes* and Karol Tymecki.

* Denotes incumbent

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Williston resident 25 votes behind in state Senate race

By Kim Howard
Observer staff

Williston resident Tim Palmer on Monday filed a petition requesting a Chittenden County vote recount for last week’s Democratic primary election for state Senate.

“The margin of less than one vote per polling place is so small that the slightest mechanical or tabulation error could have resulted in an inaccurate outcome,” Palmer, 56, wrote in a statement explaining his recount request. Though there are only 18 cities and towns in Chittenden County, several municipalities have multiple polling places.

Palmer ended the primary election 25 votes behind Dennis McMahon of Burlington, according to Chittenden County Superior Court Clerk Diane Lavallee. According to the vote tally, Palmer earned 3,471 votes compared with McMahon’s 3,496, giving McMahon the last spot on the Democratic slate for Chittenden County representation in the Senate. Each major party is allowed six candidates on the ballot for November’s general election; eight Democrats ran for that office in the primary.

According to Vermont election law, if the difference between the number of votes cast for a winning candidate and the number of votes cast for a losing candidate is less than 5 percent of the total votes cast for all candidates for the office, divided by the number of persons to be elected, the losing candidate has the right to have the votes for that office recounted. More than 43,000 votes were cast in Chittenden County’s Democratic Party primary for state Senate. Recounts must be requested within 10 days of the election.

“Having had my faith in the electoral process shaken by the handling of votes in the last two presidential elections, I have a responsibility to those who voted for me, and to all voters, to make certain that their votes are accurately counted,” Palmer said in the statement.

McMahon said he thinks a recount will not change the outcome and that a recount is not “good for business.”

“I would rather it not happen, but that certainly is his right,” McMahon said. “I think it does set me back a little in terms of fundraising and other things.”

“I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing myself,” he added.

Palmer said he hopes the recount moves forward expeditiously so that time may be spent on the issues significant to Vermonters. Lavallee said the recount is set for Tuesday, Sept. 26.

The five Democratic candidates whose slots on November’s ballot for senators representing Chittenden County are, in order of most votes received, Doug Racine, Ed Flanagan, Ginny Lyons, Jim Condos and Hinda Miller. The Republican slate will include J. Dennis Delaney, Diane Snelling, John Stewart and Agnes Clift. Darren Adams, the Republican with the sixth highest vote total, has said he will not be running as he has enlisted with the Marines; the Republican Party caucus must nominate a replacement.

Lavallee said there were 109 different write-ins for the position to represent the Progressive Party, and 12 different write-ins for the Liberty Union Party so it is likely there will be no one on the ballot for each of those parties. Independents interested in the position must file with the Secretary of State’s office; that information was not available prior to press time.

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