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Elections and budgets voting dates and info
Key dates & times:
OVUU School Board annual meeting
- OVUU School Board annual meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 26th at 6:30 p.m. at Otter Valley Union High School.
Also voting will take place at this meeting,
not at the polls, on the "Valley Community
Recreation Center" proposal.
A very informative article on the proposed recreation center was in the recent Reporter newspaper. We have their permission to share it here in our newsletter.
BY STEVEN JUPITER- The Reporter
BRANDON—The OVUU School Board has voted to hold a floor vote on transfer of land for the proposed “Valley Community Center” VCC at its annual meeting on Wednesday, February 26 at 6:30 p.m. at Otter Valley Union High School.
VCC would provide indoor recreation space to all the towns that feed into the RNESU school district. According to the plan, these seven communities—Brandon, Pittsford, Sudbury, Leicester, Whiting, Goshen, and Chittenden—would share an indoor recreation and exercise complex that would provide residents with recreational opportunities that the area currently lacks.
VCC would be centrally located on the Otter Valley campus, on land granted by the district, and would be managed by a nonprofit created specifically for the purpose, whose board would comprise members from each participating town. VCC would encompass an indoor gymnasium with basketball and pickleball courts, a walking track, weight and cardio rooms, a snack stand, first-aid station, and a flexible, multi-use meeting room.
When the idea was first proposed last October, the OVUU Board decided to leave the decision whether to grant permission to use the district’s land to the voters in the district. The assumption on the Board was that the question could be placed on the Australian ballot on Town Meeting Day along with the proposed school budget.
However, at last week’s OVUU Board meeting, the Board was informed by RNESU Business Director Brenda Fleming that the only questions permitted by law to appear on the Australian ballot were those relating to the budget or to the election of the School Board. Any question relating to the grant of land to VCC would have to be conducted as a floor vote at OVUU’s annual meeting on February 26.
This raised concerns among the Board that an important decision could be left to the historically small number of people who attend the district’s annual meeting. The Board feared that however the vote went, a significant segment of the community would end up feeling like they had not had a say in the decision.
The land in question is a 10-acre parcel along the western side of Route 7 on the southern end of the OV campus, past the last driveway into the OV parking lot. OVUU Chair Laurie Bertrand said last Tuesday that the parcel didn’t have any real value to OV but that it wasn’t the Board’s to give away; the decision had to come from the voters.
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Brandon Town Meeting and voting info
- Brandon Town Meeting 3/3/2025 Town Hall- 7:00pm
Click here for info and links
- Voting 3/4/2025 American Legion- 7:00am-7:00pm
Click here for info and links
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