Page 9 - 2025 Brighton VT Annual Report

Town Manager’s Report

Charles Dickens once wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, as the opening
lines of his novel, A Tale of Two Cities. I feel like this best describes the past year in Brighton. We started
the year without a road crew, a fresh resignation from the Town Manager followed by a selectboard
member, a zoning administrator and the list goes on. It felt like the world was closing in, but like so many
times in the past, we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and the community came together to
move forward.

Our first order of business was to rebuild our road department. The town was
very lucky to hire Nick Bingham, a young man that grew up in town but had
the experience of working on the highway department in Tennessee. He has
brought a youthful drive to the position, working to ensure that the crew is
serving the residents of Brighton to the best of their ability while maintaining
and protecting the very large investment the town has made in equipment.

Tucker Crowe, another local young man, was our next addition to the road
crew. I give Tucker a tough time because he looks so young, but he is an
exceptional equipment operator and is a huge asset to the town. Rounding
out the road crew is Kurt Rhynd. After being a second homeowner in
Brighton, he chose to make Brighton his home and joined our crew. Kurt
obtained his CDL certification in the fall so he was ready to help clear the Road Foreman
enormous amount of snow that has “blessed” us this year. Nick Bingham

I would like to give a special thank you to our retired road foreman,
Mark Castonguay. Without succession from one road crew to the
next, Nick and the crew were left to figure out the unique snowplow
routines for all the town roads. Mark was generous enough to share
his 30 years on the job to bring that knowledge to the new crew.

The town’s next big hurdle was the cost of the 2024 Flooding events.
I found a folder full of material invoices, a partial list of damage sites
Road Crew and $500,000 in debt associated with these catastrophes. It took 3
Tucker Crowe & Kurt Rhynd solid months to piece together what took place, what the damages
were, how did we fix them, and how much did each damage cost.
I was lucky to have had a couple of very patient, understanding and helpful program administrators at
FEMA. The town has just received $450,000 in reimbursements. There is still a state share on these
reimbursements that we will see at some point. We also received $50,000 for the engineering costs
associated with replacing the bridge on 10 Mile Square Rd. That engineering is nearing its completion,
making it possible for us to go to bid this spring in order to replace the bridge this summer. FEMA has
also provided an additional $25,000 to be used for engineering costs on three of the replaced culverts to
ensure they are adequate to handle future flooding events.

The heating system in the Depot building decided that this was the year to die. The town therefore had to
install a new boiler in the building. Originally slated to be part of an energy upgrade to the building which
would have been grant funded, it couldn’t wait. The town was aware that the boiler in the building was
going to need replacement and had set up a reserve account a few years ago and funded it based on the
estimated cost. Unfortunately, those costs, like all others, rose dramatically. The reserve fund did cover
half the cost of the new boiler, lessening the blow to the budget.

2025 Annual Report 7