Quinlan Bridge and Budget Top Selectboard Agenda
by Nancy Wood,
January 13, 2011, page 1.....

The Selectboard advocates for plow access through Quinlan Bridge and decides on “zero” dollars for the Conservation Fund.
The Selectboard meeting January 10 featured a discussion about the Quinlan Bridge rehabilitation project with Mark Colgan, the engineer who has been working on different design alternatives, Mark Sargent, the state project manager, and Scott Newman, historic preservation officer at the Vermont Department of Transportation. Newman is the person who analyzes the federal historic preservation 4(f) criterion to determine if a design change meets historic requirements.
Selectboard Chair Charles Russell said before the meeting, “We met with the [state] historic covered bridge committee on December 1st and after that Scott determined that the design to allow Junior to run his plow truck through the bridge would not fly historically because there is a ‘feasible and prudent’ alternate route on Route 7 into Ferrisburgh and Monkton. We invited them in to talk about this further with the whole board.”
Road Commissioner Junior Lewis said that if he could not use the bridge with his fully-loaded plow trucks, he would use Mt. Philo Road to Ferrisburgh. He said it would create a safety hazard for his trucks to slow down traffic on Route 7 during a snowstorm, especially in the area of the Berry Farm where cars would probably try to pass.
The Quinlan Covered Bridge spans Lewis Creek at the intersection of Spear Street and Monkton Road. Built in 1849, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and is one of nine Burr Arch bridges in Vermont. The state has secured federal historic preservation funds to rehabilitate it, and the Selectboard signed an agreement previously to allow the project to proceed and to guarantee that the Town would maintain the upgraded bridge. However, Russell indicated that the board did not realize that the rehabilitated bridge would not be able to accommodate the town trucks with a full load of sand.
Currently, the Quinlan Bridge is posted for a five ton (10,000-lb) limit; however, school buses (17 ton), the town plow trucks with sand (25 ton) and fire trucks (24 ton) use it.
Marty Illick, director of the Lewis Creek Association, is concerned about delaying the project for more study. Unable to attend the meeting, she said in advance, “It is important to note that the longer the Selectboard takes to agree on the historic preservation bridge repair solution, costs go up, and the project starts to go over budget and take funding from other pots of dollars that are reserved for other Chittenden County towns needing a lot of help with bridge and culvert fixes.” Illick recommends more flexibility on the part of the town. She said, “There was less than scant need for the recently incurred cost (for a study) only to reaffirm that Junior could take a slightly longer route to manage Roscoe and Lewis Creek Roads without breaking the bank. Charlotte does not need to push for keeping the same old way of doing business and the easy way out (crossing the bridge with an overweight truck when doing winter sanding in southeast Charlotte). This costly and time-consuming approach could be dropped and replaced with a more flexible, open minded and collaborative approach.”
Colgan and Sargent agreed to explore another alternative that would increase the load potential of the bridge without sacrificing the historic integrity, which will take another month.

Zero Contribution to the Conservation Fund
The Selectboard debated at the Monday, January 10, meeting how much contribution to give to the Conservation Fund in fiscal year 2012. By a straw vote they decided on zero dollars. In 1996, the voters authorized the Selectboard “to increase the tax rate by no more than $0.02 for a ten year period to establish a Conservation Fund.” They again voted in 2006, using the same language, to continue for another ten years, and that has been the amount given every year.
Board member Winslow Ladue said that when making his decision, he considered the large amount of money already in the fund ($849,000, with $125,000 committed to the Bean Farm project), the evidence that that are no large projects on the immediate horizon, the down economy and feedback from voters about tax rates. Board Chair Charles Russell said that he had wanted to reduce funding to zero for the current year when it was discussed last summer, but acquiesced to the 2-cent ($185,260) contribution that was made because that was the amount voters were led to expect at Town Meeting 2010. He said that taking a year off from funding was not backing away from a commitment to conservation efforts.
Town Treasurer Mary Mead, in an October memo to the Selectboard, had suggested the board “hold off assessing the taxpayers for more money for this fund until (1) we can figure out a way to get a better return on our investment and (2) until the reserves are spent down in a responsible manner.” The Board of the Charlotte Land Trust (CLT) indicated in December that it was not opposed to a less-than-2-cent appropriation to the fund in 2011. At that time, CLT Board President Frances Foster added that the board would be comfortable with 1 cent. At this Monday’s meeting, Kate Lampton of the CLT board expressed disappointment in the process that has led to the zero funding decision.
The board also decided to change how the contributions to town funds – Conservation, Fire & Rescue Capital Reserve and Affordable Housing Reserve funds – are presented for discussion and vote at Town Meeting. Instead of being separate articles on the warning, they will be included as line items in a special section of the budget. Discussion of them will be part of the overall discussion of the budget, allowing an opportunity for amendment from the floor.
Salaries for town employees were also discussed, in executive session, with the conclusion that there would be a zero increase i salaries in the budget for fiscal year 2012.
The board’s meeting on January 24 will be the last chance for public input into the budget issues. The board will make their final decision that evening on the budget to be brought to the voters at Town Meeting on March 1.

In other business, the Selectboard approved a highway access permit for a widened entrance to Upper Old Town Road at Mt. Philo Road and approved an application and $5,000 in match funds for a grant for the Co-housing trail.