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JUNE 24, 2021
Legislators overrule voters on charter changes
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
WWW.WILLISTONOBSERVER.COM
BY JASON STARR Observer staff In March of 2020, Williston voters overwhelmingly approved three changes to the town’s charter. Over this past winter, however, two of them were rejected by state legislators. The charter is the town’s over-arching governing document. Any changes require legislative approval. Lawmakers in the House Government Operations Committee gave a thumbs up to one of the three changes this spring, and the full Legislature followed suit. That change gives authority over hiring and firing the director of the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library to the town manager. Previously, that authority had rested with the Library Board of Trustees. Town Manager Erik Wells noted that the change formalized the way library directors had been hired in the past, with the town manager making the hire with the advice and consent of the library trustees. “There wasn’t a formal documentation of who does have the final authority and what the (hiring) process would look like, so that led to the charter change process,” Wells said. “It does the town well to have that documented in the town charter.” In conjunction with the charter change, the town and trustees signed a memorandum of understanding in 2020 to formalize how a variety of items will be managed between the two entities. But when it came to two other charter changes the town sent to the Statehouse this session, Williston voters were overruled by lawmakers. The town sought more power over local governance with both proposals, one of which would have allowed the town to enact charter changes without legislative approval as long as another town had enacted a similar charter change. “The concept is, if one municipality is allowed to do something by virtue of its charter, other municipalities should be able to ‘opt-in’ for the same and not be subject to a legislative review,” Wells wrote in a recent memo to the selectboard. According to Rep. John Gannon, the vice chair of the House Government Operations see CHARTER page 15
Lake Champlain Chocolates has moved its production to Williston, opening space at its Burlington store, pictured, for new initiatives, including expanding the company’s ice cream offerings.
Williston just got a lot sweeter
OBSERVER PHOTO BY JASON STARR
Lake Champlain Chocolates moves production to Boyer Circle BY JASON STARR Observer staff In May, the manufacturing floor inside Lake Champlain Chocolates’ headquarters on Pine Street in Burlington was vacated, with equipment and personnel moved across Chittenden County to Williston’s industrial zone. With 70,000 square feet in a building on Boyer Circle, the business has brought its receiving, production, packaging and shipping processes under one roof and left its Burlington flagship building with newfound space and flexibility for product development and consumer-facing initiatives. The company, which was founded in 1983 and is now under its second-generation of family ownership, has had a warehouse on Boyer Circle since 2011. Starting in 2017, it began experimenting with moving more of its production there. “It has a lot more linear space than our building in Burlington has,” company
President Jim Lampman said. “With manufacturing, straight unobstructed length is very helpful.” But it wasn’t until the company fully committed to moving all its production and distribution to Williston last month that it realized the full benefit of the open square-footage. “When we had two facilities, we were handling things a lot more than we had to,” Lampman said. “We had to ship things to ourselves, across town, then back to Burlington. It was kind of a circular flow within our own internal supply chain. We really identified there was a lot of waste and cost in our internal handling.” There are about 60 full-time employees working out of the Williston location. That number will swell to meet seasonal demand each fall, Lampman said. He expects that having the production and packaging teams working in the same location will benefit employee morale. “We call it a packaging group and a manufacturing group, but in reality they are all part of one process, and this is an opportunity for us to join the processes together and have that team spirit that is really essential for safety, product quality and overall opera-
tion,” Lampman said. “Williston has become a great new facility of operations and fulfillment to ship chocolate across the country.” One thing the company loses in the transition is its factory tours, which were offered at the Burlington headquarters. The company won’t be offering those in Williston. “Everyone wants to be able to walk through a chocolate factory, but it’s challenging with food safety to be able to orchestrate that,” said Lampman. “And certainly the world of COVID has made everyone think differently about tours and access.” Meanwhile, in Burlington, Lake Champlain Chocolates plans to build out its ice cream business, which will be moved from Williston to Burlington. It will also retain its research and development, sales and marketing offices and retail store there. “There are some exciting things that will come to Pine Street in a reimagining of our flagship store,” Lampman said. “We have an opportunity to think a little differently without space constraints. We are excited to be working on some opportunities for people to come experience chocolate and ice cream in new ways. That’s what we’re trying to work toward creating.”