Essex town manager outlines minor charter cleanups, appointment changes in H.516 review

Greg Dugan, town manager of Essex, told the Vermont House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee that H.516, an act to approve amendments to the Town of Essex charter, packages mostly small, technical and procedural changes and a few adjustments to appointment authority.

The changes stem from a 2022 Charter Review Committee created by the Select Board, Dugan said. "We formed the Town Forum, Select Board formed a Charter Review Committee," he said, and that committee proposed changes which were brought to voters at the 2023 and 2025 town meetings.

The amendments would update several passages to reflect Essex's switch to Australian ballot voting, clarify the town moderator's role as primarily overseeing informational hearings rather than presiding over an in-person floor-vote town meeting, and change language from "real estate appraisal" to "assessing." Dugan said the package also includes edits to which positions the town manager recommends for appointment versus those the Select Board appoints directly.

On select board minutes, Dugan described a practical problem the amendments seek to fix: "We were finding ourselves in violation of our own charter occasionally, which is not something that we wanted to be in," he said, explaining that the current requirement to approve minutes at the next meeting can be impractical when meetings occur in quick succession.

The bill would let the town send a mailed notice about the availability of the annual report rather than mailing the full printed report to every voter. Dugan said that printing and mailing thousands of full reports creates a significant expense and that notice by postcard or similar methods would allow the town to inform residents while reducing costs.

Committee members questioned the removal of several obsolete offices from the charter, including historically named roles such as the "Weigher of Coal." Dugan said those roles "we don't have those positions currently. So, felt sort of silly to us to keep them in the charter," and that the town understands the positions remain available under state statute even if removed from the charter.

The committee also discussed whether cemetery commissioners should be appointed by the Select Board or by the town manager with Select Board approval. Dugan said one Select Board member preferred manager appointment because the cemetery commissioners have access to the cemetery reserve fund and the manager can provide more direct oversight. He said the town's rationale for moving the cemetery commission under Select Board appointment was that it would mirror how the Select Board currently appoints several other boards and committees, such as the energy committee and development review board.

No motion or formal vote was taken on H.516 during this portion of the hearing. Dugan said the Select Board hopes the committee will move the bill out promptly so the town can adopt the cleanups and clarifications.

The discussion in committee lasted roughly a dozen minutes and focused on clarifying language, appointment authority, and administrative efficiencies rather than on substantive policy changes to the town's governance structure.