By Curt Peterson
With anti-Gaza war protests on multiple college campuses dominating the news, one might not notice the “High Noon” situation promised between the Hartland Select Board and the Hartland Garden Club (HGC) at the May 6 Select Board meeting.
Town manager John Broker-Campbell had resurrected a 1995 ordinance prohibiting any organization using the Damon Hall front yard for an event — that ordinance had not been enforced for the entire 25 years of the HGC plant sale history.
Carol Stedman, who is the organizer of the annual plant sale, explained that club members have been growing and preparing plants for this, their only fundraiser, for several weeks.
The sale is scheduled for May 18.
At an unofficial meeting between garden club members and Broker-Campbell, he apologized for the inconvenience, but insisted he was bound by his job to prohibit the sale at the site, which, ironically, is festooned with a beautiful pollinator garden created and installed for the town by HGC volunteers. With no hint they would be successful, Broker-Campbell invited HGC members to attend the May 6 meeting to plead their case to the board.
The official agenda listed the Vendors Ordinance as a subject that would be discussed at a future meeting, but board chair Phil Hobbie asked to make it an official topic for immediate discussion. HGC president Dan Talbot made his case, asking for a “waiver of the ordinance for just this one year, in view of their 25-year unfettered track record and the late notice given by the town manager regarding the prohibition.”
Hobbie’s original position favored enforcing the ordinance and suggesting the HGC move the plant sale, which raises $1,000 used for town beautification projects, to Foster Meadows, the area surrounding the town library. But, without fanfare, Hobbie inquired with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns how a mutually amenable solution might be legally created.
“I just got the response this afternoon,” Hobbie said. “The Select Board can legally vote to pause the ordinance for this event on a one-time basis, and subsequently discuss whether the rules need to be changed.”
Selectmen Trace Trancredi and Jim Rielly seemed to be leaning toward another alternative site for the sale rather than the ordinance pause, but in the end the board approved a motion by Tom Kennedy “in recognition of the services provided by the Hartland Garden Club to the town of Hartland, enforcement of the Vendors Ordinance will be paused until May 20 and possible amendments to the ordinance will be discussed in the meantime.”
So after a brief scare, the HGC plant sale will take place on May 18 as planned.
