July and August are busy months for everyone. I volunteered on some campaigns, took a trip with my wife to Montreal, and I had the privilege of working at the polls, too. I was so glad to see so many of you when you came in to vote!
So this update covers two months: July and August.
We dealt with some fairly technical infrastructure and budget issues, but also took up several things that will have a very visible impact on the future of Essex Junction. Here are a few things that stood out to me.
Opportunities for Feedback
As you know, there are many changes coming to our City soon. And we’re looking for your feedback.
Two big (but perhaps a little formal) ways we ask for public feedback are through the City’s Comprehensive Plan and proposed changes to the Land Development Code (LDC). The changes to the LDC will include what’s called "Form-Based Code."
Form-Based Code is a bit of urban-planning jargon. What we’re talking about in our case are regulations that will affect how things like the new housing we’re courting will look (their “form”) going forward. Examples include how much landscaping is required, how close buildings can be to the street, how tall they can be, and what their entrances can look like.
Decisions made here will affect the look and feel of the City, including the 10-story buildings that are literally on the horizon (pun intended), as Essex Junction grows.
The Comprehensive Plan, on the other hand, is basically the City’s guide for what Staff and the Council should focus on for the next decade. Ours is showing its age a bit, and it shows: when it was adopted in 2019, we were actively planning on merging with the Town.
And when I say "decisions," I mean "decisions made by all of us."
If you’d like to get involved, there’s more information on the Comprehensive Plan update process and feedback sessions here: https://www.essexjunction.org/departments/community-development/2027-comprehensive-plan-update
Form-Based Code discussions include a Planning Commission public hearing on September 3. More information and feedback opportunities are here: https://www.essexjunction.org/news/item/form-based-code-public-hearing
FY27 Tax Rate
One of the less exciting but more impactful things we did in July was set the City’s Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) tax rate.
As I’ve written previously, the tax rate is basically the budget we all voted for in April, divided by the sum of the all values of property in the City, aka the Grand List. Consequently, the important number in your appraisal isn’t simply how much your assessment changed, but how your property changed relative to the rest of the City’s tax base.
So the vote we held was a technical one to set the tax rate based on the budget you approved in April and the results of the reappraisal.
The challenge is that the reappraisal remains incomplete. Given that we hadn’t done a reappraisal in the City for 12 years, there is a fairly long queue of folks challenging their new assessment.
(On this note: if you want to challenge your appraisal, the deadline for appealing the Assessor’s determination is September 3rd. But I’d recommend doing so in person at 2 Lincoln Street at this point, since a written appeal is unlikely to arrive in time if you mail the form now.)
Of course, nobody challenges their appraisal because it’s too low. So after all the grievances are processed, we expect the Grand List to shrink a little from the preliminary number published in June.
At the same time, we couldn’t wait for the final numbers. We have a deadline in the City Charter by which we have to send out tax bills.
I’d have preferred to let the grievance process complete, but we were, frankly, forced to set the tax rate a little earlier by the City’s deadlines.
That’s why you saw a special meeting warned and then cancelled: we hoped the grievance process would be complete by the time of the special meeting. When that looked unlikely, we used an exception in state law that allowed us to use the not-yet-final Grand List for our calculations.
If you want to see how all that will affect your own property taxes, there’s more information, including a link to look up your own taxes, here: https://www.essexjunction.org/departments/assessor/reappraisal-of-real-property-2023-2025
Pearl Street Crosswalk
We returned to the Pearl Street pedestrian crossing project, considering the final report from the pedestrian crossing scoping study and chose an alternative for moving forward.
I’ve written before about why I think Pearl Street is one of the more difficult corridors in the City for people who aren’t traveling in a car. It’s an important connection, and if when crossing, the street is intimidating or dangerous, it encourages folks to run across the street instead of waiting for the best break in traffic.
When people feel compelled to act like that, it’s not safe for drivers nor pedestrians.
The goal here isn’t to make life difficult for drivers. It’s to make sure that people on foot and on bikes can safely get where they’re going.
We voted to have the City start working toward a crosswalk near the bus stop at Willeys Court.
West Street Force Main
This is another example of the less-visible infrastructure work that a city has to do. Nobody gets particularly excited about a sewer force main, but wastewater infrastructure is absolutely essential. And when it needs to be replaced, we need to deal with it.
First: what’s a force main? Well, it’s basically an exit pipe for wastewater. We have an 8-inch pipe that runs underground from the West Street Pump Station down to the plant off Cascade Street.
You may remember that we recently asked you to approve a bond issue to upgrade the obsolete setup at the West Street pump station. The good news is that the pumps are working great! The bad news is they’re working a little too great.
Currently, the new pumps are working extra hard because they’re filling this 8-inch pipe to capacity. It’s better if we can let the wastewater flow downhill using gravity. If the pipe is full, the pumps keep running. Staff projects that if we keep them running like this, they will wear out in seven years instead of their 20-year life expectancy.
Therefore, Staff and the City Engineer suggest increasing the size of the pipe to 10 inches (which is actually 56% larger by cross-section), to extend the life of our new pumps.
In July, Council authorized the City to apply to Vermont’s Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund and approved putting the bond issue on the November ballot. Unfortunately, after Council approved it, we learned more. So in August we decided to push back putting the bond on the ballot until we could do some more analysis.
Police Update
I’m a sucker for well-presented data, and Chief Hoague brought a lot of it. It’s much easier to have a productive conversation about public safety — or anything, really — when we’re talking about what is actually happening rather than relying on anecdotes or headlines.
The overall story is pretty encouraging: crime is trending down in most categories.
The biggest category of crime EPD deals with in the City is property crime. That’s obviously not something we want, but it’s worth putting it in perspective. We aren’t dealing with the levels of violent crime that some larger communities face. Our biggest challenges are things like theft from cars and retail theft. And even there, we’re seeing improvement.
Break-ins to cars are down, and I think residents deserve some credit for that. The Chief specifically pointed to the department’s efforts to remind people to lock their cars as one factor in the decline.
So: thank you for locking your cars! It turns out that the boring advice actually works.
The exception to the downward trend is retail theft. I was particularly impressed with the Police Department’s response. Chief Hoague and Lt. Chistolini have created a Crime Reduction Team specifically to work on these problems. They’re working directly with local businesses, trying to identify repeat offenders and, where possible, having officers on site to prevent thefts rather than simply responding after the fact.
That’s exactly the kind of proactive policing I like to see.
So while there’s certainly work to do, I came away from the Police Department’s presentation feeling pretty good about where we are. Most crime is trending in the right direction, and the department seems to be paying attention to the places where it isn’t.
Conclusion
Thank you for staying informed and engaged. It genuinely makes our City stronger.
As always, this post reflects my personal opinions and not necessarily the opinions of the City nor the City Council.
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Brian Shelden
City Councilor
bshelden@essexjunction.org
(802) 879-7665
