The Town of Putney has four elected office openings to be selected at the Annual Town Meeting on March 3, 2020 by Australian ballot. The openings are for a Member of the Selectboard (3-year-term), Lister (3-year-term), Cemetery Commissioner (3-year-term), and Moderator (1-year-term). Petitions to run are available from the Town Clerk. To have your name placed on the ballot, the candidate will need the signatures of 19 (1% of the voter checklist) Putney registered voters and file the petition with the Town Clerk not later than 5:00 p.m. on Monday, January 27, 2020. Petitions are also available here: https://www.sec.state.vt.us/elections/candidates/local-candidates.aspx
The selectboard is at the center of Vermont’s local government. It is the body that has general supervision and control over the affairs of the town. The selectboard performs three functions: legislative (enacts local ordinances, regulations and policies); administrative (prepares and presents the budget, oversees all town expenditures, supervises personnel and controls town buildings and property); and quasi-judicial (determines private rights in such areas as laying out, discontinuing and reclassifying highways and hearing appeals as the local board of health and as the local liquor control commission).
The primary responsibility of the lister is to determine the fair market value of the property in the Town of Putney; all real property commonly known as real estate is assessed. Real property is defined as land and any permanent structures attached to it. This value is converted into an assessment, which is one component in the computation of real property tax bills. In order to accomplish this goal, listers must understand appraisal methods and property assessment administration in Vermont.
The cemetery commissioners are responsible for the care and management of the town cemeteries. These duties include the sale of burial plots and maintaining the 15 town cemeteries.
The moderator calls the annual town meeting to order at the appointed time, announces its business, decides all questions of order, makes public declarations of the votes (except Australian ballot votes), and preserves order and decorum at all times.
