March means town meeting, and Addison County residents dutifully went to the polls and their annual meetings to elect local leaders and pass a variety of municipal and public education budgets.

It was indeed a departure from March of 2024, when only two school district budgets earned voter approval: Addison Central and Lincoln school districts. This time, every school spending plan earned a resounding OK — thanks to a major, extra, one-time infusion of state funding — except for that of Orwell, which was tied to the defeated Slate Valley Unified Union School District budget.

Middlebury residents not only adopted their local school and town budgets, they endorsed, by a 1,021-134 tally, a $49.5 million upgrade of their community’s 24-year-old wastewater treatment plant at 243 Industrial Ave. It was one of three successful public works-related bond proposals in the shire town. Also approved by wide margins were $2 million in proposed improvements to a major municipal water pump station off Rogers Road, and a $1 million plan to install a stormwater treatment system for the Adams Acres subdivision.

Addison Central School District voters decided a five-person race for three of Middlebury’s seven seats on the ACSD board, choosing Jess Venable-Novak, Ron Makleff and incumbent Steve Orzech to fill those three-year spots.

Bristol voters thought they had decided a nine-person race for six seats on the Lawrence Memorial Library Board of Trustees. Burt a contested race for two, two-year terms on the board ended in a tie for second place on Town Meeting Day; Audrey Beckwith and write-in candidate Peter Hewitt both received 253 votes for one of the seats. A special runoff election was averted when Beckwith withdrew from the race.

Sadly, an 11th-hour effort to boost tiny Ripton Elementary School’s population through an invitation to out-of-town ACSD kids failed. Barring an infusion of new students in K-5, it appeared as though Ripton Elementary days would be numbered.

March was also a month during which local businesses and individuals were trying to sort out the impact the Trump Administration’s tariffs could have on their respective bottom lines. The presidential administration early in the month issued steep 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports. But the tariff amounts appeared to change daily, based on the president’s moods or whims.

Town Meeting Day voting this past March added to a disconcerting narrative: election ballots in the vast majority of communities featured zero contested elections. In fact, many ballots displayed various posts — ranging from delinquent tax collector to selectboard — with no takers. This forced communities to recruit for vacancies after the election.

An incumbent who certainly could not have been faulted for not running for re-election: Mike Audet was honored at Orwell town meeting upon completion of 47 years as town moderator. He received a standing ovation.

March also saw major advances for projects serving the elderly.

Seven years after Dan and Rebecca Hassan first thought of expanding the 38-bed Vergennes Residential Care elderly living home in the city’s downtown into the 88-bed Vergennes Grand Senior Living complex, the first residents moved into the new facility on March 20.

At the same time, workers were putting the finishing touches on $3.25 million in renovations to Elderly Services Inc.’s headquarters off Middlebury’s Exchange Street. The project featured several energy-saving updates that quickly netted big financial savings for the nonprofit, which hosts one of the most successful and admired adult daycare programs in the Northeast.

The Trump Administration’s new policies hit home in March with an announcement that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had canceled two programs supporting the purchase and distribution of local food, including an initiative that provided funding for Vermont school districts to buy and serve food from area farms and food producers. The hit to those Vermont producers, some of them based in Addison County: $1.7 million.

If that wasn’t enough extreme weather continued to wreak havoc on the farming community. Addison County state Sens. Ruth Hardy, D-Middlebury, and Steven Heffernan, R-Bristol, introduced a bill to try help those who had suffered losses. Bill S.60 would establish a “Farm Security Special Fund” to provide grants for farm losses caused by weather conditions during the prior two summers.

A major land and timber-rights transaction acknowledged by selectboards in Weybridge and Addison paved the way for the transfer of hundreds of acres of land and timber rights on Snake Mountain in both of those communities to the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife. Snake Mountain is the site of a state Wildlife Management Area.

With signs of spring appearing, boosters of the Bristol Skatepark announced progress renovating the popular facility next to the Bristol Hub Teen Center on Airport Drive. Plans called for deconstruction of the current skatepark while seeking grants and donations for an estimated $800,000 makeover, with an eye toward accessibility and inclusivity.