Fairfax residents on Tuesday night voted overwhelmingly to keep the town manager position.
Voters in the Franklin County town of 5,000 cast 693 “no” votes on the ballot question to get rid of the town manager position, according to the unofficial vote tallies posted to the town’s website. There were 295 votes cast in favor of eliminating the position.
The results are sure to be a relief for current and incoming selectboard members, as well as town staff, who were prepared to take over the town manager’s many duties and responsibilities.
Selectboard members, all of whom work full-time jobs, were adamant that the governing body was not equipped to handle the responsibilities that the position juggles on a day-to-day basis. The board last month unanimously approved a resolution in support of the town manager position.
“If we don’t have somebody to run the town on a day-to-day basis, it may come to a point where I may not be able to fulfill the duties of my role on the selectboard,” Tim Burns, the vice chair of Fairfax’s selectboard, said previously. “That’s how much work there is in that position, how important it is, and to shift the responsibilities of all of the duties of a town manager to the staff or to the selectboard, you’re setting yourself up for failure in my eyes.”
Those duties include grant applications, which were critical in helping fund road improvements after flooding in July and December 2023 washed out a number of town roads.
Fairfax established its town manager position in 2017 with voter approval. The town’s selectboard had previously handled those duties.
But last year, confusion over the whereabouts of a town-owned truck quickly billowed into calls for the resignation of then-Town Manager Sarah Hadd and later morphed into action to rid the town of her position altogether. She has since left the job.
Frustration among community members quickly materialized into a petition that garnered more than 200 signatures from town residents last summer calling for the end of the town manager style of governance.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Fairfax residents vote to keep town manager position.