the town of
Dummerston, Vermont
Dummerston Selectboard
Dummerston's five-person Selectboard handles the municipal governance issues of the town. 
The Board generally meets every other Wednesday at 7:00 PM, at the Town Office. Meeting times are always warned in the Brattleboro Reformer. You can e-mail the Board at selectboard (at) dummerston.org.
The Selectboard is comprised of the following elected officials:
| Andrew MacFarland (Chair) | macfarland (at) dummerston.org |
| Tom Bodett (Vice Chair) | bodett (at) dummerston.org |
| Wayne Emery (Clerk) | emery (at) dummerston.org |
| Greg Brown | brown (at) dummerston.org |
| Zeke Goodband | goodband (at) dummerston.org |
From the March, 2010 Town Report...
The beginning of FY2009 is like a lifetime ago. Dwight Miller was still clearing brush on the farm and folks' 401Ks still had money in them. Through the thick and thin of it Selectboard members Cindy Jerome, Lewis White, Andrew MacFarland, Wayne Emery and Jack Manix carried on the town's business. Cindy, Lewis and Jack stepped down from the board as of last Town Meeting while Greg Brown, Zeke Goodband, and returning member Tom Bodett took their places.
In spite of the concerns raised by the town in written testimony, the Public Service Board issued a certificate of public good for the Southern Loop project and VELCO has been busy over the summer and fall of 2009 widening the existing transmission line footprint and installing new towers in many parts of West Dummerston.
On the other end of the infrastructure spectrum, Dan Snow and Jared Flynn took on the reproduction of the historic livestock pound adjacent to the Historical Society building. While not precisely where the original pound was located, it is an accurate rendition of the type of town pounds common in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Dan and Jared used the project to conduct Master stonewalling classes and the town thanks them and their students for the gift of their talents and hard work. Now if we ever end up with a stray cow on our hands we'll know where to put it.
In other critter news, the Windham County Sheriffs discontinued animal control activity as part of its contract services to the Town and it was decided with the agreement of First Constable, Ron Hubbard, that these duties would become the Constable's responsibility. We thank Ron for taking this on and believe we heard Wayne Emery offer to help with the cow.
The five emergency sirens slated for Dummerston were reduced to three and then two - one at the town garage and the other on the West Dummerston Fire Station - after much public testimony about the nuisance of them and the opinion that five was too much of a good thing. Reasonable minds may still disagree and the final issue has probably not been heard.
2009 was a bridgey kind of year. High Bridge, off of Bear Hill Road, was replaced and should last a good long time. Long anticipated funds to repair the historic Green Iron Bridge were finally received and the work was awarded to Renaud Bros. whose capable hands dug into the project this past summer. The Selectboard disagreed with the State Transportation Dept's recommendation that the reopened bridge be a one-way, west to east crossing, and voted to allow one-way traffic to move in both directions once construction is completed in the early summer of 2020.
Excessive wear on the covered bridge deck panels prompted the Selectboard to seek immediate funding for reinforcement or replacement of the wood panels. After exploring several options, including the cost prohibitive total replacement as well as a risky proposal for an epoxy wear surface, it was decided to grind out the wheel track areas uniformly and install replaceable oak planks which can be readily changed as necessary. This elegant solution, masterminded and executed by Mike Renaud and his crew, was covered by VTrans structures money along with a modest match from the Town's West River Crossing Fund. Many thanks once again to Renaud Bros. Construction for their good work and great service.
Illegal dumping became a problem along some town roadways and the Selectboard made a decision to turn Nourse Hollow and Bear Hill Roads into gated "pent" roads. This seems to have helped, but nothing helps like not throwing your trash over the bank in the first place. We can only hope these low characters are from some town other than our own.
The Selectboard continues to keep its eye on the long term gravel needs of Dummerston and is investigating several options that can be pursued once our current pit on Carpenter Road is played out. We want to thank Ken Carpenter once again for his willingness to work with the Town to fulfill our gravel needs. We'd also like to thank the Carpenter Road neighbors for their patience with the pit activities. Lee and the crew have tried to be as conscientious as possible, but there's no real quiet way to crush and haul a load of gravel. Thank you!
A three-year effort to locate and map any Unidentified Corridors (Ancient Roads) within the town has so far turned up nothing. Tom Johnson and Chet Wendell graciously volunteered to sort through some of the old town records in search of rumors of roads long forgotten and unseen. The conundrum with this exercise is that if you can go out in the woods and find it, it's not an Unidentified Corridor and we don't have to do anything about it. If you can't find it, and it was once a town road and never thrown up, we have until July 1 of this year to claim it or forever lose the rights to it. We don't believe the Town has a lot of forgotten roads, but if you think otherwise please notify the Selectboard.
Finally, the Selectboard worked very hard to keep the budget you see in this report level with last year's. Not an easy task, and we thank all town employees, commissions, and committees for working with us to keep your town government part of the solution to these hard times, and not a contributing factor. Dummerston continues to be blessed with outstanding talent at its service, both on and off the payroll, and with a community that stays involved and keeps this town a place we can all be proud to call home.