Are you one of the 915 Middlebury residents who voted “yes” on the March town meeting bond vote for the municipal building project?
Would it have influenced your vote at the time if the selectboard (instead of repeatedly assuring voters that the proposed project was compatible with the vision and spirit of the town plan) had revealed instead that altering the town plan to accommodate the project would be part of the process?
If you object to this style of doing business in Middlebury, please come to the July 22 public meeting at the Russ Sholes Senior Center at 7 p.m. to voice your concern that for some voters, their yes vote on this bond may have been based on multiple assurances of compatibility with the existing town plan, not an ex post facto rewrite and editing out of inconvenient inconsistencies. Altering our town plan to suit this proposal is far beyond the scope of “housekeeping” and “clarification” as the board would have us believe. It is disingenuous and, I believe, outright dishonest.
Elections matter. Accurate information matters. If merely 59 “yes” voters had chosen instead to vote “no,” the bond would have been defeated. With such a close and contentious vote, even the slightest perception of a manipulated process is unhealthy for our town.
Barbara Tomb
Middlebury