RIPTON — Town Meeting Day saw Ripton resident Perry Hanson score two big victories. He won a tight race over incumbent Selectman Richard Collitt, 116 to 112, for a three-year term on the town selectboard, and also prevailed in a three-way race for Ripton’s single seat on the new, unified Addison Central School District Board.
Town officials on Wednesday afternoon said that a recount of the votes cast in the Hanson-Collitt race was requested and it will be done. The earliest the recount will happen is Friday morning and the latest is Tuesday afternoon, the town clerk reported.
Hanson won Ripton’s seat on the 13-member ACSD board with a combined total of 1,033 tallies recorded from all seven of the Middlebury school districts that the new panel will represent under a single budget (see related story, Page 1A). Finishing out of the running were Bryan Alexander, with 993 votes, and Jerry Shedd, with 498 tallies.
Ripton endorsed the formation of the new unified ACSD by a 150 to 93 margin.
There were no other contested races on the Ripton ballot. Unopposed candidates elected on Tuesday included Alison Joseph Dickinson, town clerk, one year; Carolyn Smith, town treasurer, one year; Kathleen Smith, delinquent tax collector, one year; Timothy Hanson, town moderator, one year; and Giles Alexander and Bryan Alexander, three years and two years, respectively, as Ripton school director.
Residents approved, by voice vote, a 2016-2017 general fund budget of $263,601 and a highway budget proposal of $313,100.
The proposed 2016-2017 Ripton Elementary School budget of $953,106 also passed by voice vote, as did other articles on this year’s warning that sought:
•  $36,000 for the local fire department.
•  Approval of a locally funded agreement to reduce the property tax for the Silver Towers Camp owned and operated by the Vermont Elks Association Inc., to 33 percent of the total taxes that would be due.
•  A combined total of $19,214 for various charities and nonprofits that benefit Ripton residents.