HARTFORD — At the polls on Tuesday, voters approved all items on the town and school ballots, including $7.86 million in bonds for water main improvements and a petitioned article to take a stand against apartheid in support of the Palestinian people.
Incumbents Ashley Andreas and Tim Fariel came out on top in a three-way race for two two-year terms on the Selectboard, with Fariel taking 828 votes, Andreas 821 and challenger Janet Sharkey Potter finishing with 638.
Colin Butler ran a successful write-in campaign for an open School Board seat, securing 292 votes.
Of Hartford’s 9,000 registered voters, 1,372, or roughly 15%, braved the chilly temperatures and later thick snow to make their way into the polling booths at Hartford High School Tuesday.
With 30 warrant articles on the town side and two on the school side to consider, residents all had their own motivations for casting votes Tuesday.
Voters approved the proposed $23.38 million town operating budget, 922-401, and the proposed $58.71 million school budget by a narrower margin, 763-542.
The closest vote of the day was a 659-641 split in favor of adopting a pledge to affirm support for the Palestinian people, and declare an “apartheid-free community.”
The same pledge was considered in other Vermont municipalities including Montpelier, where it was rejected for the second year in a row, and Bristol, where it was added to the agenda and approved at the last minute Monday, according to reporting from VtDigger.
The same pledge passed in Underhill, Vt. and was up for consideration in Richmond, Vt. and other municipalities.
Jimmy Coleman, 28, was particularly motivated to support the pledge in Hartford.
“It’s really important to have moral courage and believe in the power of community,” Coleman said. “Especially as it comes to big issues that aren’t necessarily (what) we see around us all the time but we know are happening and find ways to come together as a community, to stand up for what is right and for peace and justice.”
For many voters the decision was simple.
“It doesn’t cost any money to be decent and welcoming,” 56-year-old Annette, who declined to give her last name, said of her vote for the pledge Tuesday evening.
Others had a harder time coming to a decision.
Though Harry Kendrick, 79, ultimately voted to support the pledge, he said he had “mixed thoughts.”
“I did vote for it, because as you read it, I think it’s kind of hard not to,” Kendrick said. “It’s basically supporting all human rights and people, but I’m not sure it belongs on a local ballot. I think it’s a bigger issue than that. I’d like to see the Selectboard focusing on local issues more.”
Closer to home, Carolyn Hooper, 65, lives in Wilder on a street that sees “multiple” water main breaks every year, though not on one of the seven streets where water mains will be replaced, she said after voting Tuesday morning. She wanted to make sure to lodge her support for the bond articles to improve the water system.
Hooper was also excited to support appropriations for social service organizations.
Voters approved 15 articles totaling just over $204,000 in appropriations for social service organizations and nonprofits such as Advance Transit, WISE, the Special Needs Support Center and Windsor County Mentors.
Bruce MacLeod said he voted Tuesday to support the infrastructure bonds and carried his ‘yes’-votes down the ballot, relying on the expertise of the Selectboard and others who he said “have done all the research and said we need to do this, and who am I to argue with that?”
“I actually believe that we need to give money, that you need to use money to improve the quality of life, that these are all useful things,” MacLeod, 64, said Tuesday. “They wouldn’t bring them up” otherwise.
Linda Swain, 77, was concerned about the cost of the proposed water main improvements, though she declined to say how she voted on the two articles.
“There’s no way they will not increase my property taxes,” Swain said. “And, you know, I really can’t afford to have my taxes go up.”
The total cost, which is expected to be between $1.8 and $2 million on a bond for infrastructure improvements in White River Junction and between $7.77 and $8.51 million for its counterpart in Wilder, is expected to be borne by water system users.
Resident Ally Tufenkjian, 32, said she had a tough time choosing two of the three candidates running for contested seats on the Selectboard, but ultimately cast her votes for Fariel and Andreas. It is helpful to have people on the board who know the ropes, Tufenkjian, who is a former Selectboard member herself, said, especially the complicated budget process. It can also be difficult to build trust and camaraderie on the board when there is a high rate of turnover.
“I have seen Tim and Ashley on the board as it stands now really doing a good job of building that collaboration and team building, and getting to some of that strategic visioning for the town,” Tufenkjian said.
Kendrick was happy to vote for Fariel who he said has been a “good addition to the board” and is very approachable and visible at public events. He felt Fariel, who was previously on the School Board, has shown that he is not afraid to speak his mind and take a stand.
“I see him at the high school ball games and so on,” Kendrick added. “He’s easy to approach and talk to about things.”
In keeping with tradition, candidates stood in the cold outside the entrance to the high school gym to meet voters, including School Board write-in candidate Butler, 73, who passed out slips of paper with his name.
Butler was motivated to run after he found out no one had filed to fill an open three-year seat on the board, he said Tuesday. He started following the School Board’s work in 2024, when the board agreed to pay departing Superintendent Tom DeBalsi his full salary for a year after his departure.
Butler is interested in finding ways to improve academic excellence in Hartford, especially in English and math. He also wants to contribute to the school consolidation and reorganization conversation in Vermont and said he feels the current School Board “hasn’t done as much as I would have liked in terms of advocacy at the state level or communicating what the impact of Act 73 might be on Hartford citizens.”
Butler said he wants to be open minded when it comes to Act 73, Gov. Phil Scott’s landmark education reform bill that aims to reorganize and consolidate Vermont’s school districts. But he is not interested in anything similar to the original proposal from Gov. Phil Scott that envisioned a district stretching from Hartford down to the Massachusetts border.
“I don’t think I want to see our kids bused all over the place, and I don’t want to see small village schools closed, necessarily,” Butler said. ”And I don’t want to have to travel halfway across the state to attend a School Board meeting.”