The St. Johnsbury selectboard approved a state downtown grant, 26 rental housing improvement grants and a resolution clearing the way for the town's next tax sale at its July 13 meeting, then heard a manager's report dominated by storm preparations and downtown redevelopment.
The board accepted a $25,000 Downtown Vibrancy grant from the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development and signed the municipal letter of attestation required to receive it. A representative of Discover St. Johnsbury, the town's state-designated downtown organization, told the board the attestation confirms the state money does not replace the town's own support. The town's appropriation to the organization has been $25,000 in recent budgets, the same amount as the grant. The nonprofit runs the town Welcome Center, replaced the community's welcome signs last year and operates on a budget of about $100,000 a year drawn largely from business sponsorships and grants.
The board adopted a resolution authorizing the town's tax collector to hire outside counsel for its upcoming tax sale. The collector said the proceedings have grown more complex in recent years and that the firm was brought in on another attorney's recommendation. A first round of notices will go out before a sale date is set, likely within about six weeks.
Members also approved transferring $60,024.66 from the town's restricted housing reserve to its unallocated fund balance to reimburse money already spent on the Rental Housing Improvement Grant program. In a separate vote, the board approved 26 grants under that program totaling $136,750, which staff said would support about $912,948 in repairs, create six new apartments and return four vacant units to the market.
The board took no action on a draft management plan for the town's Knob property, a conservation parcel the town has developed with the Vermont Land Trust since 2021. Committee members presented recommended edits to the plan, prepared by the consultant Arrowwood, and asked the board to review them. Members said they needed more time before deciding.
In his report, Town Manager Chad Whitehead said the town's annual audit is not expected back until around September and that the assessor, having finished a first round of grievances, will brief the board on the grand list at its next meeting. Whitehead said the fire department and public works crews were staging equipment and putting staff on call ahead of significant weather forecast for the following night.
Whitehead said a bid opening for utility work on Bay Street was set for on or about July 23, with the sewer portion of the project expected to be finished by year's end. He also pointed to progress at the former True Temper site on Bay Street, where the town has secured a federal brownfield cleanup grant with the regional development agency NVDA. Final comments are pending from state and federal environmental regulators, a housing developer is engaged, and the town plans to seek concept designs for reuse of part of the site. Security cameras and lighting are being added to a nearby lot the town wants to open for trail parking, which the police department has begun patrolling.
Staff said the town is working with NVDA to keep both of St. Johnsbury's census tracts in Vermont's reorganized opportunity zones and expects to bring a fuller briefing to a future meeting. Asked about activity in the rail yard, staff said the work appeared to be routine maintenance.
Two residents raised other matters. One asked why the town's summer painting crew was behind schedule; staff attributed the delays to heavy spring rain and a short-staffed crew. Another asked about a vacant building on Railroad Street that recently sold. Staff said no change-of-use application had been filed and the buyer's plans were not yet known.
The board adjourned without entering executive session.
Photo: Margaret Giatras via Unsplash. Photo is illustrative and not from the scene.
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