Vernon council elects mayor pro tem after tie, approves appointments, grants and settlement

John O'Connell was elected mayor pro tem of the Vernon Town Council after a tied roll-call prompted Mayor Daniel A. Champagne to break the tie, and the council approved a series of appointments, agreements, job reclassifications, grants and a settlement during the meeting.

The council elected O'Connell to serve as mayor pro tem for the remainder of the 2023–2025 term after nominations from the floor produced two candidates: John O'Connell and Mary Anne Levesque. The council recorded six votes for each candidate; Mayor Daniel A. Champagne cast the deciding vote for O'Connell, saying, "I will break the tie for John." The council followed the nomination procedure described from Robert's Rules of Order and completed the election at the meeting.

The council unanimously endorsed the nomination of Connor Janicki to fill a temporary vacancy on a board; Janicki told the council he grew up locally and said he looked forward to "working with the board of education." Several asset-disposal motions for the data processing department and the Board of Education were approved; staff noted hard drives removed from disposed IT equipment are destroyed prior to disposal.

The council approved an updated intermunicipal sewer agreement with Ellington. Town staff and the Vernon Water Pollution Control Authority said the revised agreement uses metered flows from the Ellington pump station—already in place…