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JUNE 27, 2019
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
Going with the flow
Williston’s one-man stormwater department turns over By Jason Starr Observer staff
James Sherrard, the only stormwater coordinator the Town of Williston has ever had, leaves this week for a similar job with the City of Burlington. The Williston Department of Public Works is accepting applications for his successor through next Friday. Sherrard developed the stormwater department from its infancy in 2015, taking control of about $700,000 in annual revenue from the stormwater fee the town began collecting that year. The fee charges homeowners $51 per year to help the town control and clean rainwater that runs off impervious surfaces, and eventually into local streams and lakes. Larger property owners are charged based on the square-footage of impervious surface on their properties. The money covers maintenance of existing stormwater infrastructure — runoff retention ponds and roadside ditches and culverts, for example. About 40 percent is also set aside for new infrastructure that can help the town meet the requirements of its state-approved plan to restore the Allen Brook. The Allen Brook flows through the center of town and is designated as impaired by the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The designation obligates the town to design and implement a “flow restoration plan” for the brook. The DEC approved the town’s plan in 2016. One of the plan’s key tenets is to upgrade stormwater infrastructure
Observer courtesy photo
Williston Stormwater Coordinator James Sherrard leaves this week for a similar job with the City of Burlington.
in 18 of the town’s residential neighborhoods. Much of Sherrard’s work has focused on fostering relationships
with members of neighborhood homeowners associations, educating them about the upgrade requirements and working with
the selectboard to create policies to help the associations cover costs. The selectboard has agreed to have the town apply for stormwater grants on the neighborhoods’ behalf and offer low-interest loans to help fund the improvements. It also committed the town to take over long-term maintenance of the upgraded systems. Sherrard said last week that 12 of the 18 neighborhoods have completed upgrades, and two more are expected to be complete by the end of the year. The town has received and distributed about $700,000 in grant funds over the past two years to defray costs, and loaned about $1.1 million, he said. The experience has been an education in diplomacy, local politics and state bureaucracy for Sherrard. That, and the use of the engineering and hydrology knowledge he acquired while earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering have made the job fulfilling. “I am really grateful for having been able to work in Williston,” he said. “It’s bittersweet to leave a program that you’ve been at the inception of.” The job description posted by the public works department is two pages long. The top-line responsibility states: “plans, organizes, oversees and directs all aspects of the program, including legal and regulatory compliance; coordinates with the public, private businesses, homeowners associations, and governmental agencies …” Public Works Director Bruce Hoar said the pool of candidates with experience in the field “is pretty narrow.” “Stormwater is a little bit of a unique field,” he said. “But we’ve
WILLISTONOBSERVER.COM
Cards, change stolen from parked cars Williston police are investigating a series of thefts from unlocked cars in the Indian Ridge neighborhood off Talcott Road. Credit cards were stolen in at least two instances, and later used at the Price Chopper store on Shelburne Road in Shelburne, according to Officer Keith Gonyeau. In other cases, change, phone chargers and gift cards were stolen. Gonyeau said eight cars were entered in the early morning hours last Monday, June 17, on Isham Circle, Read Road and Kristen Court. The cars were unlocked and parked in homeowners’ driveways, he said. “We are being much more vigilant now,” said Carey Haug, an Isham Circle resident who lost change and a phone charger in the crime. “We are locking all our cars, even the ones inside the garage, and I’m parking inside the garage now.” On Thursday, residents of nearby Winslow Lane reported two more similar incidents. Gonyeau said these kinds of thefts have happened in clusters in Williston every couple of years. “They are going after the cars that are unlocked. It seems if they find a door locked, they move on to the next one,” he said. Gonyeau is working to retrieve surveillance video from Price Chopper to match the timing of when the stolen card was used in order to identify a suspect in the June 17 thefts. Police have store video of a person they believe stole a credit card in Thursday’s incident on Winslow Lane. “We have a person we are trying to identify,” Gonyeau said. “We’ll have to see if it’s the same person when I get the (second) video.” — Jason Starr
see SHERRARD page 2
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