SWANTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Come Town Meeting Day, voters in Swanton Village will decide if they want to approve a nearly $20M public safety building move and expansion.
The village says their 42 full-time employees, ranging from administrative staff to public works to police have outgrown the building.
A major priority would be expanding the physical space of the police department, which they say is operating in tight quarters with no holding space or adequate storage for evidence.
“It would provide us with an adequate workspace. It is just over 600 square feet roughly. Just a handful of rooms. There’s no holding area, there’s no proper area to store equipment. There’s no proper evidence storage. So it’s there’s a host of issues where the facility itself is lacking,” said Swanton Village Chief of Police Matthew Sullivan.
The vote has the potential to add a tax impact between the village and the town of over 450 thousand dollars.
“There’s eight full-time professionals now and we need to add to meet those needs. And we are in what is a closet-sized facility. Additionally, every part of the organization has grown, Public Works, we’re not a highway department, Public Works does all of the water and sewer. All of those upgrades an extensive list of things are responsible for the electric department. Essentially 3,800 electric customers in three different communities that we serve. We have our hydroelectric plant, everything’s going to be bigger,” said Swanton Village Manager Bill Sheets.
The goal would be to break ground in phases in 2026 and 2027. The village manager says another tangential conversation not on the ballot is the idea of regionalizing the police force with neighboring departments.
There will be informational open houses at the public safety building on January 15th and 25th.
