Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Village?
A village is a municipality, a small government unit, like a town. The residents and taxpayers of the village remain voters and taxpayers of the town, and all governmental obligations and services other than those explicitly granted to the village remain in place for residents and taxpayers of the village.
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Why would we want to form a village?
Currently, the Westbury limited equity co-op is essentially performing public services (maintaining roads, water services, wastewater services). The residents of Westbury pay for those services, but without the benefit of public funding. By forming a village, the Westbury Co-op could transfer control of some or all of those public services to the village and be able to compete for other sources for public funding. That doesn’t mean the residents of Westbury won’t be paying for those services. But we think it will reduce the costs for everyone because there are more affordable funding sources available for public entities than there are for private entities.
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Would the village replace the Westbury Co-op?
No. The village wouldn’t replace the Westbury Cooperative. The Co-op will still exist. It will handle everything it currently does but certain things would be passed over to the village. The village could handle road maintenance or water services or wastewater services.
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Would having a village cost me money?
We think having a village will reduce your costs because we’ll be able to rely a wider range of funding options for some services. That will mean lower overall costs. This will be particularly important when we need to do upgrades on our water and wastewater systems, which are coming up.
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Would having a village be more complicated?
Maybe. A municipality has to follow different rules from a private nonprofit. For example, with some exceptions, anything the municipality does will have to be public. Village meetings will be open to the public and village records will be open to the public. The new village officers will have to learn all those rules and follow them. But we think it’s a worthwhile change. We don’t think it will be too complicated once we get through the process, and we think it will enable us to be more financially secure in the future.
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Would we still be part of the Town of Colchester?
Yes. The village would be a separate municipality that exists inside of the Town of Colchester. Residents of the village would be residents of both the Village of Westbury AND the Town of Colchester. You’d still be able to vote in the Town of Colchester elections, and you’d still pay Town of Colchester taxes.
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What’s the process to create a village?
To create a village, we need a majority of the residents of Westbury who are also registered voters with the Town of Colchester to sign a petition to form a village. If we get those signatures, we submit the petition to the Town Selectboard, which then approves the formation of the village. Then we’ll need to hold an organizing meeting to elect officers for the Village. That’s basically all that the law requires to form a village, but we also want to adopt a charter for the village. That’s like a constitution for the village. It sets out the basic rules for how many officers there will be, when elections are, what the village has authority to do, and things like that. To adopt a charter, we’d go through a process that is set out in the Vermont statutes. Adopting the charter would happen after creating the village by petition. It doesn’t happen at the same time as creating the village.
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