Town Administrator
Liam Abbate
Newsletter - November 12, 2026
Hi Middlesex voters, property owners, walkers, and drivers,
This newsletter will be a little longer because there is so much going on. But first thing's first: as some of you may have noticed, on Tues and Wed the town had no functional town website. But as of about noon today, the brand-new website is operational. However, its search function has yet to function properly. Please visit http://middlesexvt.gov to see the modern looking site with the option to pay property taxes online (Homepage -> Online Payments). Your 2nd installment of your 2026 Property tax bill payment is due 11/20 at 5pm.
While the back end of the website was handled by the consultant the town hired: Revize, the front end content and layout were developed largely by the Middlesex website committee. After being handed the site map developed by the amazing Cheryl Grandfield (treasurer), the website committee leader Cindy Griffith charged ahead to make the website work effectively for the town. Her fellow worker bees include Susan Clark, with her extensive knowledge of town history and democratic traditions, Lauri Scharf's input on user interface, and the two Michaels' (Levine and Braun Hamilton) technical expertise. Michael Braun Hamilton and I secured the .gov domain for this site.
On Tuesday night a friendly Middlesex resident expressed that I already have a good grasp on the projects and situations facing the selectboard, and more broadly, the town. This is true but would not have been possible without many detailed conversations with Cheryl Grandfield (Town Treasurer, Bookkeeper, and Delinquent Tax Collector), and slightly fewer conversations with Eric Metivier (Road Foreman, Fire Chief, and Emergency Management Director).
Another project I have been working on is developing the next fiscal year budget, specifically 3 inter-related but distinct sections of the town budget: General Government (including selectboard & town admin costs, Legal fees, and county tax), Administration (including town clerk & treasurer compensation, the annual audit, and computer maintenance), and the Town Hall (keeping the lights and heat on, building cleaned, and trash collected at Town Hall). I will present these numbers to the Budget Committee at their Dec 1st meeting. This meeting is at 4pm at Town Hall/Zoom and all are welcome!
I started a grant application for VTrans' Better Roads Program (to replace a number of culverts under Shady Rill Rd), before handing it off to the road foreman. 2 weeks ago, I attended a meeting with staff of the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (federal govt) where we reviewed bids for the 2025 Emergency Watershed Program in Middlesex. On Tues (11/10), the selectboard accepted J. Merril's bid for streambank restoration and debris removal on 3 spots along Great Brook/Brook Rd.
I am making progress on my goal to attend all active town committees by Town Meeting Day, 2027. This evening I am attending the Bandstand Committee which plans the summer concerts at the municipal bandstand on Shady Rill Rd. I look forward to attending at least one of these concerts next summer! While I was out sick on Election Day itself, I handed out Career Center ballots on the last 2 Fridays in October, while Board of Civil Authority members were opening and tabulating absentee ballots. I have yet to attend the Planning Commission, Trails Committee, Energy Committee, and Development Review Board. In preparation for the town emails to transition over to ".gov", I have reviewed the committee email lists to make sure they include all of that committee's current members.
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Hi citizens of Middlesex,
As Autumn inches closer to Winter, I am settling into my role in Town Hall. Last week, I attended the Planning Commission’s community forum focused on Flood Resilience and Housing. About 50 people turned out in all, for pizza, conversations, and a sand box. I attended a training on municipal budgeting and financing and the monthly meeting of the Middlesex Cemetery Commission. I was appointed as an assistant town clerk so that I can serve as a Middlesex election official. I was brought up to speed with the upcoming scoping study for the Mad River Path by the chairs of the Selectboard and Conservation Commission. The Mad River Trails Association is spearheading this effort for a bike path from Warren to Camp Meade.
This week, I have finalized a list of the necessary new town email addresses, namely for the recreation dept, fire dept, and emergency management committee. I finalized the agenda for this week’s lengthy selectboard meeting. On Tuesday, I took over 2.5 hours of minutes for the Selectboard and the Board of Civil Authority (BCA). The BCA works with the town clerk to operate elections and is comprised of all selectboard members, justices of the peace, and the town clerk herself. The selectboard heard about an easement for construction on Daniel Farm Rd, the Mad River Path scoping study, and a presentation from the state dept of Environmental Conservation on their mapped River Corridors in Middlesex. The selectboard also reviewed emails about an aggressive dog at 429 Culver Hill Rd. As always, minutes of these meetings are accessible on the town website: middlesexvermont.org
To conclude, I am enclosing an excerpt from Animal Control Officer Christina Hayward’s report this afternoon:
“I have fielded 4 incident reports now that include running out from ditches and the roadway aggressively (not acting on biting). I am going over to their home tomorrow evening to get a copy of his Rabies Vaccine. They are trying to get a tether on him from their garage to keep him on a cable, but that is not a guarantee. He could easily run out the door and still get out.
Since he is not registered I have urged them to do so and keep him confined and off the road to not to be able to access the public. Since he is a charging local residents and making us all feel very uncomfortable with his actions, I made it very clear that they also needed to look into getting him a kennel and/also neutered. No dog should be on the road acting in a threatening manner.
We all know that dogs are a representation of how they are raised and what they are taught. He seems like he has ok recall, but no regard for passers by or people/kids, bicycles or cars. Since he is a intact he is also searching for female and scents on the road.
It's been very hard with the current dogs on these roads running at large! I don't want to have to euthanize anymore dogs honestly. We all want to feel safe and confident in our neighborhood and not feel like we have to change directions because of our interactions with careless owners.”
-Liam Abbate
Hi Middlesex residents,
As I approach one month into my tenure as your town’s administrator, I have stayed busy with several projects, trainings, and meetings. Last week, I tuned into the Conservation Commission’s meeting where I learned about their trail work, discussion about bear safe habits, and use of FEMA buyout land. I also met with Kathleen Ramsey from VT League of Cities and Towns (VLCT) about what I should know regarding being a town administrator. Kathleen has served as Town Manager in a half dozen VT towns, including Middlebury and Killington. I familiarized myself with our property and liability insurance, that we purchase through VLCT; I got VLCT staff to fix several errors and omissions in addresses and other details of the town’s vehicles and buildings.
I am contributing to the Website Committee’s finalization of a new website prepared by the consultants at Revize. We are trying to make this website intuitive to use, and it will hopefully allow residents to secure dog licenses online (a new feature)! Lister Shelley DesJardin pulled land records proving that while the Town of Middlesex has maintained Carr Cemetery for decades, it is in fact privately owned. I will bring up Carr Cemetery, located near the junction of East Hill and Bolduc Roads, to the Cemetery Commission at their meeting next week.
At the beginning of this week, I attended an Emergency Management meeting with both the town’s Emergency Management Director and coordinator. On Tuesday (the 6th), I joined our selectboard chair (Liz) at the VT Council on Rural Development’s summit, while on Wednesday, I joined selectboard vice chair (Zara) and town treasurer (Cheryl) at the VLCT “Town Fair. At these events, I learned about effective communication, municipal support of local businesses, establishment of community centers, municipal revenue generation, and more. I remain available to residents by email: administrator@middlesexvermont.org.
-Liam Abbate
Hi everyone,
Last week I started in a new role for the town and for me: Town Administrator. My background is in regional transportation and land use planning in the Northeast Kingdom.
So far in the Middlesex town office, I have been compiling documents for the Emergency Watershed Protection act, to repair the streambank on a portion of Brook Rd. On Tuesday, Eric Metivier (town road foreman) took me around the western parts of town: roads, the newer fire station (Welch Park Dr), town garage (next to Rumney), and town gravel pit (Notch Rd). I am working on wrapping up a state grant for a culvert replacement schedule, and starting to prepare another grant for a study of where a new town garage could go, how big it is, and how much it should cost. I also started contributing to an update to the town’s personnel policy (also known as Employee Handbook), by comparing it to the personnel policies of 7 nearby towns.
Thus far I’ve met with the Budget Committee and Selectboard, while next week I will be sitting in on the website committee and the conservation commission. I hope to eventually attend all town committees at least once, to meet their members and understand what the committees do. I am now serving as a liaison between the budget committee and the selectboard. I will soon be administering a new town website, which I will work hard to keep up to date.
I have met a handful of you at the selectboard meeting and in the town office. Feel free to stop by the town office on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday while we’re open (9 till 5), on Mondays or Fridays by appointment, or you can shoot me an email at administrator@middlesexvermont.org. Otherwise, people are welcome to meet me at the Planning Commission’s community forum at 6 pm on 10/13, or other town events in the future. I hope to provide updates like this twice a month.
-Liam Abbate