The Town of Brattleboro is looking for citizens to serve on the following committees and boards:
Agricultural Advisory Board
Arts Committee
BASIC (Brattleboro Area Skatepark is Coming)
CPCC (Citizen Police Communications Committee)
Development Review Board Alternate
Fence Viewer (by statute, must be legal voter of the Town)
Honor Roll Committee
Inspector, Lumber Shingles & Wood
Senior Solutions Representative
SEVCA Representative
Skating Rink Committee – do not have to be residents of Brattleboro
Town Service Officer
Tree Advisory Committee
The newly formed ad hoc Skating Rink Committee was formed by the Selectboard on July 16 with the mission to review options available to the Town to replace and/or repair the aging components of the Nelson Withington Skating Rink and to consider the following matters: costs, types of refrigerant, energy efficiencies, current and future operating costs, seasonal use of the facility, and financial burdens on the Town and facility users. Members of the committee are not required to be Brattleboro residents.
Applications and more information about various committees and boards can be found on the Brattleboro website, www.brattleboro.org, or by calling the Town Manager’s office (251-8151). If you are a Brattleboro resident and interested in serving on a Brattleboro committee or board, please submit your application on-line, or send an e-mail to the Town Manager’s office – tmsecretary@brattleboro.org, or mail or deliver the application to: Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office, Attn: Committee Vacancy, 230 Main Street, Suite 208, Brattleboro, VT 05301.
The deadline to submit applications is Thursday, August 15 at 5:00pm. The Selectboard will make appointments at its meeting on August 20.
Citizen involvement is important to our Town. Please consider serving on a board or committee.
…
Jan Anderson
Executive Secretary
Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office
(802) 251-8100
Fence viewing is no joke
Brattleboro has had two official fence viewings in the last two years. Fence viewers have been called out to settle property line disputes between neighbors when all other options fail.
Volunteering for the town is a great way to learn more about how local government works, and makes a difference. Give it a try.
Lifetime Appointment
Chris — I thought you were given a life tenure for the position of Fence Viewer by the future mayor of Brattleboro, no?
Fence viewing stories
I would love to see Chris’ account of the official fence viewings he participated in.
Official reports
The official reports get filed with the Town Clerk. When I did the first one, the Town Clerk said there hadn’t been one submitted since she began a couple of decades ago.
They both were property line disputes between neighbors. The first case had a one neighbor putting up a fence along a property line that had been shared for a long time. The fence was legit, though somewhat annoying to the neighbor, and incomplete but if it continued in the direction it was going it would cross the line. This was interesting in that we had to determine if it was perhaps an “unnecessary fence” – one meant to deprive a neighbor of light or air. It wasn’t officially unnecessary.
The other case involved someone who woke up to find their neighbor taking down an old stone wall to make room for parking. We looked at historical uses of the wall, old property records, and so on. Felicity Ratte was co-Viewer on this case.
Fence viewing has old statutes to follow, so many of the things on the checklist are about fences being high enough so sheep don’t escape, whether the land is used for pasture or not, and so on.