Burke is a very small town located in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. The town was settled in 1790 and as of the year 2000 nearly 1,500 residents live there. As you travel through the town you will find a general store and a ski mountain, it is said that Matt Dillon, (yes the famous actor,) loves Burke. You can also find many snowmobile trails that travel through the town, they average about 100 inches of snow every year.
The Town of Burke thought its plate was going to be light this year during Town Meeting Day, but that quickly changed during the informational meeting on Monday night. All but one of the select board members resigned, during the meeting, because they didn’t agree with how one of the select board members conducted herself during meetings. This stunned the town but they continued with Town Meeting day as planned. The town faced a huge decision and this was on how to pay for the new community building. The final choice of the voters was to pay back the building in 15 years and not 20, after all is done in 15 years they will pay about $20,000 dollars. The town budget of over one million dollars also did pass by a unanimous vote. Now both, West and East fire departments of Burke will receive $15,000 dollars a piece. The final biggest piece was the decision on whether or not to give nearly $1,500 dollars to FairbanksMuseum so that they could go there for the year for free, but at the end of the day it did pass.
Now on the other side of things, the School agenda was not as robust with items. The town did elect Howard Crawford to be the moderator for one year. Christine Emmons will be the school director for the next two years, while Tony Demasi will be the school director for the next three years. The town will appropriate nearly four million dollars to the school budget, which will begin on July 1st of this year.
