Danville Vermont             

                                                 2007 Selectboard Report 

      This year we can truly say that the town hall restoration is completed, as there is no money in line item #303 for Town Hall Renovations in our budget for next year. The front pillars were the last element to be restored, and we now expect that they will hold the roof up over the portico for many more years. Of course, we will continue to keep up with fixing the little things and strive to prevent the major deterioration experienced in the late 1900’s.

       We are promised that the digital parcel mapping of all the land parcels in the town will be completed this year for sure. They found another 200 lots since they started their work on the mapping that has added to their task. We received a set of preliminary maps, and they sure have been used a lot already. If any one has a survey map of your property that has not been filed in the town records, please bring us in a copy so your property may be accurately included in this mapping process. In the future all subdivisions will require surveys to accurately define the new parcels to be added to the parcel map.

      The Planning Commission has been busy, with the help of their consultants, on the town zoning bylaws. They have completed the revision of articles 8&9 the administration of the bylaws, and they were adopted in December after a public hearing. You can find these changes on the zoning on the town web site at www.danvillevt.com. Also on the web site you can now find most all the Town application forms posted there as well. The Planning Commission has a new grant to continue with the zoning, which will be directed towards the villages in town. Watch for the public meetings to receive public input on the ongoing revisions. The new Conservation Commission has been busy with studying the town properties and holding a public showing of the town forest down on Pumpkin Hill. They were also involved with the state acquisition of 26.6 acres of shore land at Keiser Pond.

      The operation of the Joe’s Pond Beach was continued by the West Danville Community Club again this year. It was another successful year for swimmers with the beach water again passing all tests. For your information the water samples are taken from the beach area every week during the summer months by a Danville resident and ANR employee, and then transported to the state water test lab in Waterbury for the tests. The water more than marginally passes as safe for swimming, it has been testing very good for swimming use the last three years. The Community Club is planning to make improvements to the beach area prior to swimming season this year. We are looking for public input on what to do with the old bath-house at the beach. The West Danville Community Club wants it removed so they can build an open pavilion in its place.

      The roofing on the North Danville School was replaced last year, some areas having as much as four layers of shingles on it. So far, the new roofing is performing very well. This year we hope to replace the boiler, the repairs of a couple years ago helped with the reliability but has not improved the efficiency. The North Danville School Association continues to strive to keep up with the every day maintenance and improvement of the building. Britney Machell as part of her senior project has added new computers and a telephone to the building.

      The Highway Department was again busy keeping up with the rain events last year and the resulting road washouts of July 11^th. We were fortunate enough to receive almost $60,000 from FEMA to help with those repairs on Young Farm Road, Morrill Road, Calkins Camp Road, Jamison Road, and Old Stage Coach Road. The Brainerd Street Project was completed last year by the road crew with about 7/8 of a mile of the road rebuilt and repaved there. When combined with the new drainage installed from the year before, this section of road is greatly improved. We did receive a paving grant from the state so most of the repaving done on the Peacham Road last year was paid for by the grant. As a result of receiving the grant we were able to lower the tax rate by about 2 cents before the tax bills were sent out. Another section of riverbank stabilization on the Water Andric Brook that was threatening to erode bridge #39 was also completed, the work was 75% paid for by a grant from the Better Back Roads program. We also received a grant for approximately $5,000 for ditch rebuilding to help reduce erosion and improve water quality runoff into Joes Pond on the West Shore Road. This was a new grant from the Caledonia County Conservation District. We did replace the grader last year using money from the capital equipment fund and some from the budget. We were able to save money by buying a demo unit that had very few hours on it and we still received the new guarantee, plus we received more for trade in of the old one than expected. The wood boiler continues to work out well at the garage; we’ve been able to run with all collected trees so far this year. As the price of oil continues to rise, the payback is happening much faster as we did burn 4000 gals of fuel oil there. Least we forget, Route #2 also got a layer of blacktop through town by the graciousness of the State. However, we are still looking for the real work on the village section of Route #2, seems to just get put off another year, every year even though the State sites progress?

      In the next year we hope to get the Harvey’s Hollow Bridge Grant to get that bridge refurbished. We have to finish up some of the FEMA work on the Calkins Camp Road, replacing a 3-foot culvert that washed out in the storm. We plan on rebuilding the lower area of the Joes Brook road, the last section of pavement before it goes to a dirt road. We have two grants one to replace an 18-inch culvert on Old Stagecoach Road and one to do a section of ditch and culvert work on Morrill Road from the Better Back Roads program. For new equipment we plan to replace our first ten wheeler, which is pretty well warn out, although we will get a good trade in for it. Expenses are rising fast who knows where fuel, paving, equipment parts, salt, chlorine etc. prices will go? At this time we feel we are in good shape budget wise, and even lowered the highway budget from last year.

      The fire department is having a problem with their roof leaking which we need to repair this year. We hope we can get some volunteers to join us to apply the new steel roofing. The Waste Water Treatment Plant continues to run well under Earth Tech ‘s management. The recycling program continues to grow and we hope to improve the parking area to help relieve the traffic congestion there. We had a professional audit of the town’s finances, the first in ten years. Their resulting report finds that the town’s financial statements are fairly stated in all material aspects and shows the true  respective position of the financial condition of the Town of Danville.

            As mentioned the Highway Budget shows a decrease for this year and the Municipal Budget has a slight increase, the result will be less than one cent increase in the tax rate caused by the town budgets. The voted appropriation amount shown in the budget is the amount approved last year, any voted increase in amount of the appropriations or new ones added at town meeting will have to be added to the printed budget figures, and to the tax rate.

We welcomed new Board members Denise Briggs and Doug Pastula to the Board this year. Once again thanks to all the town officers, appointees, and employees, who participated in the operation and governance process in many ways. We also thank all the many volunteers for their countless hours of service to make our town a fine place in which to live.

 Danville Selectboard

Michael Walsh    Marion Sevigny     Marvin Withers     Denise Briggs      Doug Pastula

Send mail to Mert.Leonard@DanvilleVt.com with questions or comments about this web site.