By Polly Mikula
On Wednesday, May 28, Killington residents will head to the polls to vote on who will fill two new seats on its Select Board. Voters approved expanding the board from three to five members on Town Meeting Day.
Bill Vines and David McComb are running for the two-year seat while Jon Wysocki and Jay Hickory are running for the one-year seat.
The winners of Wednesday’s special election will join Jim Haff, Patrick Cushing and Rick Bowen (the latter two who also recently won seats on the board this past March).
Prior to both the March and May vote, candidates have answered questions at candidate forums and in published Q&As, which have allowed voters to better understand four of the five board members and what’s motivating them and what they hope to achieve if elected to the board.
(Jim Haff is the only one not on the ballot this year. Haff has served a total of 10 years on the board. He is up for re-election in 2027.)
While candidates articulated their positions, a clear theme emerged: all agree that the town needs a full financial audit to include HR/payroll coupled with transparent communication and standardized policies, to successfully move the town forward.
Cushing and Bowen echoed this sentiment, too, prior to their elections in March. However, in the two months since, calls for financial transparency have ramped up significantly with numerous requests for public information filed at town hall by concerned taxpayers.
The calls stem from at least a dozen claims of financial oversight, unequal or exorbitant payouts, benefits and severance packages.
At a candidate forum last Tuesday night, May 20, hosted by the Killington Pico Area Association (KPAA) the candidates for the one-year seat clarified this need in a rare back-and-forth exchange.
Jay Hickory said he was concerned about cashflow and not having enough money to hold the town over until the August tax payments come in. “I would support an emergency audit to locate the money we should have…” he said.
Wysocki then asked Hickory if he “would like to see an inclusive HR audit, to include payroll/HR issues?” Adding, “because I hear a lot of talk in town about that and I think it’s really important for all the finances to be clear for the residents and taxpayers to better understand the true/full picture of what’s going on and has been going on with all the money in town.”
Hickory responded: “Yes, I want an audit so that everybody knows exactly where the money is going, where it’s being spent… I think it needs to be a full audit, basically a forensic audit, going deep. It needs to find out everything and bring it to light.”
“I concur,” Wysocki agreed.
In a Q&A published in the Mountain Times May 14, Hickory added: “We need the truth to come out so we can move on with the important issues that face the town.”
“If my fellow townspeople have been watching Select Board meetings over the past 6-12 months you know there has been rift brewing over a number of issues, some of these are management related, some financial, and some appear to have become personal,” said Wysocki. “There is clearly some distrust in the community, whether it relates to HR issues at town hall, how finances are being managed, how things are being paid. It’s a clear challenge and a clear issue in town right now. I see it from both sides of the fence, I hear it from a lot of different people and we need to be able to resolve that… we need to re-establish trust amongst the community, the taxpayers, the Select Board and everybody so that we can move forward. We need results now,” he said.
Candidate Dave McComb also named “fiscal oversight” as his No. 1 concern for the town, followed by “infrastructure execution and restoring public trust.”
“We definitely need transparent financial processes,” McComb said. “I’ve heard from several people from the town that they are not sure who is supposed to be producing what reports for whom. We need to correct that. I, like Jon and Jay, would like to see a financial audit, I also favor appointing a third party HR monitor so we can look at some of the morale issues,” he said.
“Whether it’s questions about budget decisions or how staff are treated, we need to rebuild confidence in town leadership,” McComb wrote in his Q&A. “That starts with transparency, better communication… I see my role [as Selectman] as providing oversight, asking the right questions, and making sure the town manager has clear guidance and the support they need to succeed. It’s not about micromanaging, it’s about setting standards.”
“We have to rebuild trust in town government,” Bill Vines agreed. “We have instability in town, Jay’s talked about it, Jon’s talked about it, I’ve talked about it looking at taxes, looking at HR issues. And that instability has to be worked out and corrected to move forward… But the good news about these issues is that they’re not obstacles to the town if we deal with them,” Vines added. “If we work as a community to make sure the town can manage its way through these processes.”
Part of the current challenges with town leadership are a result of the town not having a consistent town manager over the past few years. Michael Ramsey left in August 2024, after only a year with the town, Tom Yennerell then stepped in as interim town manager from September 2024 to March 2025 and David Atherton just took the reigns March 25. Atherton has a contract for five years and all candidates expressed hope that he’d provide the necessary stability, transparency and good leadership that the town needs.
All candidates said they believed their role as a Selectmen was to support the town manager and to provide oversight to ensure policies and procedures were followed so that transparent communication could follow easily. That starts with a full financial audit, the candidates agreed, professing to ensure that Atherton has clear direction and the tools needed to sort out any past financial mistakes to ensure that they are not repeated in the future.
“I have no preconceived notions of who the people are at town hall, I can look at it objectively and say ‘Ok this is what we have going on, this is the best way we need to move forward. Dave, this is what our opinion is.’ Dave gets a paycheck and he needs to go make it happen. He also needs to be strong enough to manage town hall because there are a lot of things that go on, there are a lot of different personalities, a lot of different needs… At the end of the day, we establish policy and the town manager makes it happen,” said Wysocki.
“Select Boards are responsible for establishing the direction of the town,” Vines agreed. “Over the last number of years with the number of town managers that we’ve had obviously the town has had to step in and provide help. And when you bring somebody new into the town manager role, obviously you have to get in there and you have to work with that person and make sure they understand the inner working of the town. But you then have to let the town manager run the show as soon as they learn what’s going on.”
“Dave Atherton, the newly elected town manager, has his job cut out for him,” Vines continued. “Providing Dave with the support he needs to put in place sound management practices at town hall is a big concern of mine and a huge motivating factor for me to run for the Select Board.”
