The League of Women Voters in the NEK encourages St. Johnsbury residents to participate in shaping the future of our town by voting on or before Town Meeting Day, Tuesday, March 5th. You can vote at the polls at the St. Johnsbury School on March 5th from 10:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., or vote early by visiting the Town Clerk's office or by contacting them to request an absentee ballot (802)748-4331 or townclerk@stjvt.com. You can also request an absentee ballot online at https://mvp.sec.state.VT.us/ Voting on or before March 5th is your chance to lend your voice to choosing: who will take care of our town and oversee our children's educations; whether to approve our town's proposed general and highway fund budgets and the proposed budget for our schools; whether to provide financial support to organizations which serve our community in different ways. Plan to participate!

In order to inform yourself before you vote, you can pick up a Town Report at the Post Offices, the Town Clerk's office, the Athenaeum, or NVRH. You can also see a sample ballot at these locations, inside the Town Meeting Warning packet there. The Town Report will also be published in the Caledonian-Record tomorrow (Saturday, Feb. 23rd). You can also plan to attend St. Johnsbury's Town Meeting Information session on Monday, March 4th at 7:30 p.m. at the St. Johnsbury School or watch it on KATV.

Visit St. J's website www.stjvt.com to take a peek at the actual sample ballot for March 5th (I HIGHLY recommend doing this, to see what you need to learn more about). Just look under "Announcements" on the left side of the homepage, and you'll find a link to the sample ballot, also a link to the Town Meeting warning, to information about absentee ballots and registration as well as the proposed 2019-2020 municipal budget. Yay, St. J, for making it easy for us to support our town by participating in Town Meeting Day! If you don't make it to St. J's website, you can also request a sample ballot from the Town Clerk's office either in person or at townclerk@stjvt.com

Not sure if you are registered to vote? You can ask Stacy Jewell and her team at the Town Clerk's office (802)748-4331 or townclerk@stjvt.com or check on the Vermont Secretary of State's website on MyVoterPage, https://mvp.sec.state.VT.us/ and if you know that you are definitely not registered, you can do so at the Town Clerk's office in the Welcome Center, or online at olvr.sec.state.VT.us

For me, the most difficult part of being a voter is finding the information to make a thoughtful, informed vote. To help you with this, we did two things:
1) I interviewed on KATV the three candidates (Brendan Hughes, Mitchell Jones and Dennis Smith) in the only contested race on the ballot, for two one-year seats on the selectboard. The interviews will be available very soon, maybe even today, on KATV's website www.katv.org so check them out to get to know these candidates. It was a pleasure to chat with them, three of our neighbors here in St. J, who are stepping up to serve our community.
2) I reached out to almost all of the candidates on St. J's ballot to ask them if they would be willing for St. J's voters to contact them directly with questions or just to find out more about them and the position they are running for and everyone I was able to get hold of immediately said "yes". It was a pleasure to talk with all of them, too! Not surprising, since they are our neighbors and they are stepping up in support of our community by offering to help with a variety of tasks around town. See the list below. (listed by: name, position(s) they are running for, contact info)

David Reynolds: School and Town Moderator; davidreynolds2013@yahoo.com
Deane Rankin: School Director; drankin@stjsd.org
Thomas Huntington: School Director; (802)922-3028 or thuntington@stjsd.org
Ilene Dickinson: School Director; idickinson@stjsd.org
Kevin Oddy: Selectperson; (802)751-9545 or koddy@stjvt.com
Mitchell Jones: Selectperson; thejonesfamilyfarmvt@gmail.com
Brendan Hughes: Selectperson; (802)473-6114 or brendan.hughes13@gmail.com
Dennis Smith: Selectperson; (802)751-5536 or dsmith@stjvt.com
Stacy Jewell: Town Clerk and Town Treasurer; (802)748-4331 or townclerk@stjvt.com
Andrew Dussault: Cemetery Commissioner; (802)748-8394 or adussault@stjvt.com
Lauren Jarvi: Cemetery Commissioner; (802)751- 8662 or ljarvi@stjvt.com