Montpelier
Supporters of the bill describe it as a tool to help communities to pool resources and trim costs, while opponents called it a “power grab” by regional planning commissions that they say will undermine the power of local governments.
The bill, “An act relating to intermunicipal services,” was introduced by Rep. Donna Sweaney, D-Windsor, last year, and was approved by the Senate committee on Government Operations on Thursday, setting up today’s vote on the Senate floor.
It would empower regional planning commissions to coordinate, implement and administer service agreements between municipalities, and it would also allow them to directly provide municipal services.
“We’re in such need in some areas that we need to do more regional kinds of work,” Sweaney said. For example, she said, two neighboring towns might each have fire departments with ladder trucks, a situation she said might be needlessly redundant. “Maybe buy one for the district and share that, and we all have a say in how that works.”
Pomfret resident and 2014 gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne, issued a public statement last week in which he blasted the bill as a “direct assault on the independence of Vermont towns and an insult to voters.”
Milne’s main criticism is that expanding the role of regional planning commissions will remove a whole slate of services — road maintenance, law enforcement and zoning administration — out of the hands of local governments.
“Their boards aren’t elected, aren’t democratic, and are not close enough to the electorate to warrant any more influence whatsoever,” Milne said.
At the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Planning Commission, 30 member towns each appoint one board member, with much of the action being driven by a smaller group of six members of the executive committee.
Milne said on Thursday that the lack of directly elected members insulates the commission from the public, and puts it at odds with the will of the electorate.
“You’re going to have a bunch of regional board members, none of whom are elected, deciding these things,” he said. “The whole thing is a sham.”
Milne said the state shouldn’t be making this decision without more deliberation, and that, ideally, it “should be on the ballot of every town.”
Peter Gregory, executive director of Two Rivers-Ottauquechee, said the bill will simply make it easier for towns to enter into voluntary agreements with their neighbor.
“People that believe this is an erosion of local control might have an incomplete understanding of what the bill does,” he said. “The local control is completely retained.”
Milne and Two Rivers-Ottauquechee are currently facing each other in the Vermont Supreme Court, after Two Rivers-Ottauquechee lobbied against Milne’s proposed development, Quechee Highlands, on the grounds that it did not conform to the regional plan.
“They can do that now, but it’s cumbersome and maybe it’s on a contract basis where one town has the ability to provide the service and the other town can take it or leave it at that price,” Gregory said. “This way everybody that wants it is in on how it’s provided, when it starts, when it ends. It’s an easier, fairer way of getting services provided across town boundaries.”
Gregory said that, with the bill exempting only the power of eminent domain, tax collection and essential legislative functions from the possibilities on offer, all sorts of municipal services could fall under the regional planning commissions.
“It could be as simple as zoning administration services that we would be able to provide to multiple towns,” he said. “It could be animal control. It could be any number of municipal services. In fact, any municipal service they currently contract out could be provided.”
He said that there are ongoing discussions among Two Rivers-Ottauquechee towns about sharing services including emergency medical services, fire protection, telecommunications, ditching and road mowing.
Phil Swanson, town manager of Woodstock, was one of several people who submitted testimony that expressed concerns about an earlier version of the bill, which would have allowed for the creation of an entirely new layer of entities called Councils of Government, a model in play in many states including Maine and Connecticut in the Northeast.
Under the former draft of the bill, municipalities would be compelled to join its local Council of Government if two-thirds of the other municipalities in its region approved its creation.
After Swanson, Patricia Moulton, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, and others expressed concerns about the model, the bill was rewritten to do away with the Councils of Governments idea.
Under the current version of the bill, a two-thirds vote of a regional planning commission board is needed to create a set of bylaws to govern the service agreements offered under the new powers granted in the law.
Milne called that clause a “non-starter.”
“They just sugarcoated the Trojan Horse of power grab a bit better,” he said. “And granted, (they) weakened it a bit, but have paved the way to more and more power.”
Swanson said that the changes to the bill have addressed his concerns.
“I appreciate that the Legislature listened to us,” he said. “I think Woodstock has a terrific relationship with a very effective regional planning commission, and we’ll continue to purchase services through them when it makes economic sense.”
If the bill passes in the Senate today, Sweaney said, it would come back to the House for a final vote. She said the differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill were not likely to be significant enough to cause the House to change its earlier affirmative position.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.