Cover to the Town of Killington, Vermont
2006 Annual Report

Cover to the Town of Killington, Vermont
2006 Annual Report

With all of the talk of the mountain of Killington, it is easy for people who do not reside in the area to forget that Killington is also a town in Vermont. Each spring, on the first Tuesday in March, town residents come together at the elementary school to decide how the town will be run for the next year through the "Town Meeting".

What many people call town meeting, is actually 2 meetings scheduled on the same day, this year being Tuesday March 6th. At 9:00 AM the Sherburne School District holds their annual meeting to discuss funding education for the children of Killington. Town Meeting, where all other items of town governance are discussed, begins just after the school meeting at 10:00 AM.

Town meeting this year has a couple of interesting twists. The first is an open Selectmen's seat. The second is a proposal to raise taxes to fund economic development in Killington.

On the Selectmen's seat, for the first time in a while, a Selectmen's seat will become available with the departure of current selectman Walt "Butch" Findeisen. Two candidates have currently announced for the position; Jim Blackman and Chris Karr. Others may declare their intentions at the town meeting, such being the free wheeling nature of the deliberations. Of the 2 declared candidates, Jim has lived in town for a number of years and has been active on the Recreation Commission. Chris has been active in the business community, and is currently president of the Killington Chamber of Commerce, a post that I held for 2 years starting in 2002. Both are nice men, with strong opinions.

In Jim Blackman's case, I have played golf with him on any number of occasions over the years. But other than social settings, I have not had the opportunity to interact much with Jim on community issues, as we have different interests. Jim and his wife have been focused on raising their children and the various community activities associated with being active parents. Mary and I on the other had, have been busy building a business in Killington, having gone through (in my case) the activities of raising children prior to moving to Killington. As a result, our circles don't overlap very much in the community, other than social settings.

My interactions with Chris Karr are a different story. While president of the Killington Chamber, I invited Chris to become a board member and take an active role in the organization, which he did. From my association with the Killington Chamber, I have seen Chris make a transformation over the last 5 years from a local business person primarily focused on their individual business, to a community leader attempting to help move the town of Killington forward in a positive direction. For this reason, I find myself supporting Chris Karr in his bid to become a member of the board of selectmen at Killington.

The other item which will garner much discussion at the town meeting is a proposal to add $0.03 to the tax rate for the next 2 years to fund economic development activities in Killington. Economic development in Killington, whose only "industry" is tourism, in this case means establishing and finding a mechanism to bring more events and activities to the town. The debate on this is sure to be lively, as the town is fairly well split between business who would like to see more activity, and 2 groups of local residents. One group of residents like things the way they are, with business declining. They would prefer a quieter town. The other group of residents, many of whom retired to the area, like the idea of more having activities in town, but want somebody else to pay for them.

My view on this issue is pretty simple.....Killington needs to get it's economic engine restarted. This is not the town I knew and loved when I was visitor. It is not even the same town that Mary and I moved to permanently and started a new business in 10 years ago. So much of what made Killington a vibrant place to visit, has been lost for a number of reasons over the last 10 years.

The sale of the resort to SP Land and the introduction of Powdr Corp should help the resort recover. While plans are not public, implicit in their investment to purchase the resort is a desire to capitalize on their investment. The only way that they can do that in the near and long term is to stimulate growth in visitors to the area; which means spending money on capital improvements to the resort and marketing.

However, the townspeople of Killington would be foolish to look at the changes in ownership in the resort as a new "Sugar Daddy" coming to town. While the transfer of the resort is a very positive piece of economic news for the region, pretending that everything is all better now could be a tragic mistake.

Instead, I believe the sale of the resort should be looked at as a galvanizing event... a new beginning of sorts. It will add energy and vitality to the resort that should be channelled to raise the whole community.

But the only way to effectively do that is to have the community as a whole participate in the revitalization. And that will take time, and effort, and money. And the money needs to come from somewhere. And the only fair community approach to raising money is through taxes. And the only community vehicle in place to raise taxes across the community is the towns property tax. So even though I do not like the idea of raising taxes, unless I hear something different at Town Meeting, I find myself supporting this initiative.

Town meeting day is always interesting. If you are a local resident, make sure you attend, raise any issues you may have, and vote. If you are a non resident, and are interested in civics, it is always a great display of democracy in action. I just hope it's not a powder day. Let it snow!