Cityhood status stays on the horizon

Manchester–village or city?

Despite a lengthy delay due to extreme caution during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, the move toward Manchester becoming a city is still on the minds of Village Council and administration.

“Our petition language was approved by the state shortly before everything shut down last winter,” explained Village President Pat Vailliencourt. “At that time, of course, everyone thought it would just be a ‘few weeks’ and we decided it would be best to wait for better weather and an end to the virus-related issues before initiating our petition drive.”

Of course, the pandemic and related shutdown has lasted much longer than “a few weeks.” And there’s a feeling that the village, despite taking due precautions, does not want to lose the momentum it gained in the early months of the effort, which began a year ago, with a highly attended public meeting on August 5, 2019 to discuss the proposition with citizens.

Vailliencourt added that she and Village Manager Jeff Wallace have had ongoing talks since March, trying to determine when would be the best time to proceed with identifying and training petition circulators and beginning the petition drive. That time is apparently getting closer now, as petitions have successfully been circulated for candidates for the summer primary election and the fall general election.

“We want to come out the door running,” she said. “This is still very much going to be a village taxpayer decision–that’s why we are taking the route of a petition drive. We want to establish that we have a strong base of support for this decision.

“Although we just reduced our taxes by two mills (due to debt retirement), this will be an option for village residents to reduce our taxes yet further.”

Vailliencourt concluded, “We need to move forward.”

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by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.