What’s on Chester’s March 2 and March 3 ballots Infrastructure projects fall in the shadow of contested elections

By Shawn Cunningham and
Cynthia Prairie
© 2026 Telegraph Publishing LLC

The Tuesday, March 3 Australian ballot will contain more than just the contested races for Chester’s Select Board and for Chester seats on the Green Mountain School District Board. And on Monday, March 2, the Town Meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. will offer 17 articles to be voted on from the floor.

On the Tuesday, March 3 ballot, Articles 2 and 3 will ask voters to approve borrowing of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars for infrastructure projects including sidewalk restoration and paving. Only a few residents watch or attend the meetings where these matters are discussed and even fewer dissect the minutes and spreadsheets that explain them. So here are Articles 2 and 3 in a nutshell.

Article 2 

Back in 2017, the town was awarded $800,000 to rebuild and improve the sidewalk from Bargfrede Road on the lower end of Depot Street to Town Hall. The grant – from the state’s Bike and Pedestrian fund – was written by Julie Hance who at the time was the executive assistant to Town Manager David Pisha. While these types of grants take several years to finish, the grant moved forward on most fronts, but was stalled by the Green Mountain Railroad and the State Transportation Department on the issue of an easement for the town to build a sidewalk crossing the tracks by Smitty’s Chester Market. For several years, Hance reported to the Select Board that nothing seemed to be able to shake loose that easement.

And after years of pushing on the state and the railroad, Hance – now Town Manager since 2020 – finally got the easement. But there was a problem. Since 2017, the cost of everything had gone up and the $800,000 was not going to get the job done. Luckily, Hance found that the same grant fund was willing to provide additional money to put the project back on track.

With the project now totaling over $1.8 million, the town has to put up a required match of  $430,000 so the work can go forward and thus the bond issue in Article 2. The Vermont Department of Transportation’s fact sheet says that construction is slated to being in the summer of 2026.

Article 3

This more typical article has the the town looking for $300,000 to do paving on Flamstead Road, River Street and the Whiting Library parking lot as well as patching Depot Street, which is not on the state’s paving list until 2030. According to Hance, the Depot Street patch work — long a sore spot for the town — will start as soon as the weather allows, with the paving later in the summer.

Hance told the board in a recent meeting that she would be doing less grant writing this year because there are several grant funded projects that will need to be tightly administered. Those include both the Depot Street sidewalk work and the $2.9 million project to replace the Depot Street sewer force main, gravity main and the First Avenue sewage pumping station in the Depot Street area. A bond funding that was approved at last year’s meeting although the repayment will not be by all Chester taxpayers but rather by users of the water and sewer system.

Articles 4-20

At 6 p.m. on Monday, March 2, voters will gather on the 2nd floor of Chester Town Hall, 556 Elm St., to vote on Articles 4 through 20. All are fiscal issues.

Articles 4 through 7 involve requests specifically from town government including:

•  Article 4: $70,000 for a new Police Department cruiser;
•  Article 5: Borrowing $100,000 to fund a matching grant for Route 35 construction and Thompson Road easement purchase.
•  Article 6: $4,461,054.94 is the amount that needs to be raised in property taxes to fund the budget approved by the Select Board in January. The total budget is more than $4.4 million but the remainder comes from other revenue sources.
• Article 7: Approval of a 1 percent local option tax on rooms, meals and consumed alcohol, limited to 10 years, to fund the the Housing Reserve Fund.

Articles 8 through 20 are requests for funds from organizations that serve either Chester exclusively or the region. They are:

• Article 8: $13,807 for The Visiting Nurse Association & Hospice of VT & NH.
• Article 9: $3,044 for Health Care and Rehabilitation Services.
• Article 10: $3,040 for Southeastern Vermont Community Action, better known as SEVCA.
• Article 11: $900 for the Women’s Freedom Center.
• Article 12: $2,400 for Senior Solutions.
• Article 13: $2,250 for the MOOver of Rockingham transit service.
• Article 14: $800 for Windsor County Mentors.
• Article 15: $400 for Green Mountain RSVP & Volunteer Center of Windsor County.
• Article 16: $1,800 for the Community Cares Network of Chester and Andover.
• Article 17: $4,000 for Meals on Wheels of Greater Springfield.
• Article 18: $5,570 for Neighborhood Connections.
• Article 19: $5,000 for Black River Area Community Coalition.
• Article 20: $3,000 for the Chester-Andover Family Center.