BERLIN — Voters in Berlin made history Tuesday, approving their first-ever $4 million municipal budget and electing their last town clerk.
The $4.1 million budget proposed by the select board didn’t induce sticker shock, despite a projected 13-cent rate hike. It was overwhelmingly approved 248-65 according to Town Clerk Rachel Giroux.
It was Giroux, who became something of a historical footnote when she was elected to her first — and last — three-year term.
Last year, voters approved a charter change that, once approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor, will eliminate the elected position and empower the select board to appoint future town clerks.
Giroux received 281 of 284 ballots cast for clerk in her one and only run for a position she was appointed to fill last year by the select board last year.
Heading into Tuesday’s election there were two candidates for three select board seats, but Giroux said former board member Ture Nelson received 66 write-in votes — more than enough to fill what would have been the vacant seat created by Carl Parton’s decision not to run for a second one-year term.
Two other board members — Flo Smith and Joe Staab — were elected in uncontested races.
Giroux said everything passed in Berlin — most by margins as wide or wider than the vote on the municipal budget.
The $387,109 appropriation for the Berlin Volunteer Fire Department was approved 249-60 and voters 192-120 approval of $34,188 for Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier was comparatively close. It passed 192-120.
