Jill Stahl Tyler is running for a three year seat on the Brattleboro Selectboard.
….
Tell us a bit about yourself. Who are you and why are you running for a three-year seat?
Hi, my name is Jill Stahl Tyler. I decided to run for Selectboard because this is my home.
When we built our house thirty years ago, we planted trees. From sapling to towering shade cover, we wanted to see them grow. Over the same decades, we’ve watched things change in downtown Brattleboro. As the crime situation has worsened, I wondered if we had to leave, and if someone else would enjoy the crisp yellows of the forsythia, the majestic first blooms on the magnolia, and the striking flowering crab apple that now spreads widely near the front patio.
I am deeply rooted in this community. I have experience in running a small business for more than thirty years; knowledge gained as executive director for three and a half years; eight years on the school board; and many contacts from other leadership positions in various groups. I’m ready to help Brattleboro grow in a healthy way.
My dairy farmer parents always said that if I wanted something to be different, I should get to work and help change it to be better. I chose the longer, three-year seat commitment because I know that this is a process that takes some time.
Is there any particular issue that is motivating you to run? Why did you gather signatures?
In my mind, the Selectboard has two main jobs. The first is the traditional one: administer town services at a cost that its citizens can afford. The second is much broader: have a vision for the future of the town. That’s so important for us right now in our town, and I feel I have the skills to help in both.
How would you quickly describe Brattleboro to someone who has never been here?
Brattleboro is a charming town with stunning natural beauty, located within hours’ drive from many major metropolitan areas. People who choose to live here are very engaged in the community. We have good schools, excellent health care and a strong focus on the arts.
What problems do see at the top of Brattleboro’s list in 2025?
The first and most important thing we have to do is to make our downtown safe. We also need to grow our tax base, and have consistent long-term planning.
What are your priorities? Have any new ideas for solving any of our problems?
My top priorities for Brattleboro are:
- Ensuring a safe community for all of us, especially downtown.
- Using town resources responsibly, with planning for the future.
- Supporting growth in tax revenues through new businesses and increasing the grand list.
What would you say were your big accomplishments during your years on the school board?
During the eight years I was on the board, we kept a steady eye on our job: get a high-quality education at a cost the tax payers can afford.
Brattleboro began seeing much higher needs from our students: food insecurity, less kindergarten-readiness and more children in foster care. In response, staff began collecting and analyzing data on test scores and differences in achievement, and identified socio-economic needs and related indicators.
With this information, schools focused on improving areas where we found deficiencies. The board worked closely with our top-notch, professional and dedicated administrators and teachers to support those needs. It was a highly collaborative process that I found personally rewarding. The work done in schools has a direct, immediate impact on lives—and it has long-term implications for our society.
We worked hard to keep the tax increase to the lowest level possible—while at the same time, we recognized that there were serious, long-term issues if we did not address these issues.
As chair, I repeatedly stated the same thing: what is the best quality education we can give our students, at the lowest cost for our taxpayers? It was our guiding principle, as it should be for the Selectboard.
If voters elect me to the Selectboard, you’ll hear me asking the same questions: What is the best quality of life we can provide? What can the Selectboard do to address the most significant problems affecting us as citizens? And how can we do that at a reasonable cost?
What impresses you about Brattleboro – why be here? What are our strengths and how can we tap into them?
We live in a stunningly beautiful area. We enjoy plentiful opportunities for outdoor recreation, from hiking and biking to swimming and skiing. We have two rivers, many hills, and even our own ski jump and volunteer-run ski hill at our large park.
We appreciate arts in this town. Can any other place this size boast so many unique entities, like the New England Youth Theater, the Brattleboro Music Center, the Jazz Center, the Stone Church, the Brattleboro Museum, the River Gallery, the Insight Photography studio, two dance schools—and much more.
Brattleboro has a great location as an entrance city. With the updated train station, we will have even better connection to the urban populations who could enjoy spending a few days in our area. We have thousands of tourists passing through our town already.
Imagine what our town could be if we spent our collective energy and some of our taxpayer dollars on encouraging new businesses to come here… imagine our downtown with every storefront filled.
When you think of the future, how do you see Brattleboro?
I see a downtown with no empty storefronts, new housing construction for the missing middle class, and children playing in parks.
How do climate issues figure into your vision?
Brattleboro has already been listening to scientists’ predictions and has started to prepare, especially for the expected increased rains. We’ve moved some housing out of flood zones, and we’ve created green spaces near the Whetstone Creek as it comes into town. We should consider all investments in relation to changes in the climate.
12.1% seems like an enormous property tax increase for taxpayers. Thoughts?
I agree that it is an extraordinary increase… and I think the situation we are in right now is also extraordinary:
- The trash/recycling contract increase is $516,641. (And if we had all citizens do it themselves, it would have cost $1.4 million for the same cumulative service.)
- Police staffing salary increase is $458,894. This includes BRAT positions, which were specifically asked for by the 2020 Community Safety Review Study.
- Employee benefits increase is $897,192. Health insurance rates in the state of Vermont went up at least 11%, with some increases as high as 22.8%.
- Human services budget is $461,000; as passed by RTM last year, it increased from 1.4% of the total to 2%.
- Last year’s tax increase was intentionally lowered by using reserve funds; as we have no additional surplus funds to use this year, we have a larger gap to cover.
- Emergency responses to the six motels in the State’s general assistance program cost the Town an estimated $544,000 in 2024. We need to look at revenue-sharing with the State of Vermont.
- We have over 13,000 annual police calls annually. Coincidentally, 20 individuals have been responsible for 16% of the calls.
The budget has to address the needs of our community. Right now, we need to invest in additional resources to make our town feel welcoming and safe. I support the current budget line items for increased police downtown and for the BRAT team. We are contractually obligated to pay the employee benefit increase.
Could we get better budgets if we reversed our current system and instead had Representative Town Meeting create the town budget and let the Selectboard approve it?
No. The budget needs to be created by those who know all of perplexities—the town staff. This is work that takes hours to do. It is logistically impossible for over 100 people to pull together. I’d like to have the entire town vote on the final budget. There are only 150 Representative Town Meeting members. That’s just over 1% of the population of Brattleboro, or a little bit less than 2% of the registered voters in the town.
Do you expect the advisory vote on human services funding to give you good feedback? Was it smart to limit the question to human services funding and not other parts of the budget, say staffing or program cuts?
It makes sense to me to have the human services part of the budget specifically reviewed by all voters. Currently, only RTM members vote on the amount. I like that the Selectboard is giving the town a chance to speak up on the human services funding. I’ve heard questions about this line item for the past 30 years. This is the first time voters are being given an opportunity to weigh in. As noted in the last question, I’d prefer to see the entire budget go before the voters.
In your view, would it be better to have a central indoor location for people to use needles for drug injections, or should we keep things as they are currently (ie, any locations around town, out in the open)?
I don’t think it is “better” to have people injecting drugs at a “central indoor location” OR to have people injecting drugs at “any location around town, out in the open”. Neither of those are good answers.
The issue embedded in this question is how Brattleboro should deal with the people we have on our street who are drug addicted, and it’s a question that is causing much division and misunderstanding.
In the past four or five years, we’ve seen increasing amount of homelessness, with many of them addicted and afflicted with mental illness. Brattleboro, in our wonderfully compassionate way, has tried to help all who have come our way. But we are a small town of 12,000, and we have reached our capacity to help yet more. Indeed, I think almost everyone in town would agree that we cannot adequately attend to all the needs of the people we already have here.
The petition I circulated does not actually make a judgement on safe injection sites. It only asks that the Town of Brattleboro have a vote to inform the State of Vermont how we as town citizens feel, before any establishment or operation of any safe injection site.
Are you satisfied with Brattleboro’s support of its farming community? What’s working and what can we do better?
Brattleboro is incredibly supportive of farming, especially local establishments. I’d love to see even more coordination for farmers as businesses with additional promotion as a part of the positive advertising of the opportunities Brattleboro offers for tourists as well. Anything we can do as a town that supports local businesses is a good idea.
Are you satisfied with public engagement in town matters? Is local democracy strong?
We have not had enough candidates running to fill all of the Representative Town Meeting seats since 2009—and we do this year.
But at the same time, why is there so much interest this year?
I believe it is because we have so much divisiveness. I constantly hear refrains of “us” vs “them”—but all of us want a downtown that works for all of our citizens. The true “them” is the criminals who have caused such harm to our downtown.
The tone of discussions—online and during meetings–are increasingly uncivil. Having overflow crowds at Selectboard meetings—who are heatedly arguing and frustrated—is not what we want as a community.
An “engaged public” can mean many happy families at Gallery Walk, walkers in the 4th of July parade, and volunteers to organize town events.
I have several ideas on how to change the public input portion of our meetings. It is now limited to those who can attend by Zoom or in-person. I’d like to have a formal way so even more viewpoints can be heard and more thoughts can be shared with the Selectboard and the public overall.
My goal is to actively work to make town government boring. The quality of life for all of Brattleboro improves when we are no longer so mistrusting of each other.
The Community Safety Review Committee recommended, generally, that we should aim to reduce policing and increase human services in Brattleboro. Do we respect the work of committees?
There are many committees in town. I believe that the Selectboard and other decision-making groups have listened to them fully, that their hard work is respected and appreciated. This does not mean that their recommendations are automatically adopted. Nor should it.
This particular committee’s recommendations, done in 2020, came from a survey that encompassed only 1% of the town’s population. Nonetheless, the results were reviewed fully by the town manager and various Selectboards since 2020. The majority of one meeting in summer 2024 went through every recommendation line-by-line. The Community Safety Review’s recommendation of increasing human services in Brattleboro was met by embedding social workers and by creating a Downtown Safety Plan. It is focused on meeting people’s needs and providing safety for the entire community.
Chief Hardy’s report on February 4th shows results already from the newly formed BRAT team: one of the new hires has helped seven people get to treatment since he started in October.
Recommend some books, movies, and/or music for us…. what is interesting you lately?
Music running through my head is still from the Brattleboro Concert Choir’s January concert. It was my first time singing with the group—loved it! The music includes waltzes by Brahms, sung in German, which I never pronounced very well so repeats itself in my head mostly as “da-da-da’s”… some traditional madrigal pieces, happily in English… a super fun, rhythmic work in eight parts, and in Haitian Creole… and a collection of seven movements of sublime poetry written by a Vermont poet, and composed by a Vermont dairy farmer/composer. (If you get a chance to attend this group’s concert, don’t miss it!)
Is there anything you’d like to mention that hasn’t been asked?
I would like to share a couple of thoughts possible ways to increase revenues. The first area would be to ask the State of Vermont to recognize and compensate Brattleboro for the services we’re providing as the motel program has come to an end. Larger towns (like Brattleboro, Bennington, Burlington and Rutland) have more motels, and we housed many people during COVID. We met the ending of that state program with compassion, trying to pick up the pieces. But this is a State problem, and we are paying for it disproportionately.
We also need to be able to quantify what we spend on services for those addicted to opioids specifically—and then ask for funding from the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee, to help cover what we’re already spending. The Brattleboro Fire Department asked for about $33,000 this year, out of an available $6 million; next year, the town staff tell me, they will have much stronger numbers to be able to present in a proposal.
I’d encourage a continual focus on promoting our town, making it clear all that it offers. We have huge advantages here. Geographically, Brattleboro has two rivers, and is surrounded by mountains. The variety of outdoor opportunities is nearly endless: hiking, biking, skiing, cross country skiing golfing, kayaking, boating, swimming, camping, leaf-peeping and the list goes on. We’re just off a major interstate. We are the entry city to a state known throughout the country—even internationally—as beautiful, photogenic, charming and welcoming to tourists. We have a train that comes in from many major metropolitan areas in less than a day. The downtown is completely walkable. We have great school and fun shops.
Downtown—and West Brattleboro and Putney Road, all of Brattleboro, in fact—should have no empty shopfronts. Small businesses create the most jobs, and stimulate the economy. The town could award grants to help people fund their business ventures, and offer promotional help through town-wide advertising. The town could also be actively looking for grants that help start-ups, and work in tandem with other groups that give technical assistance.
Also, I’d like to look into public/private housing initiatives. We have a lot of programs for lower income housing, but we are missing the middle class and senior housing. We need to be encouraging and supporting these groups specifically.
What’s the best way for voters to reach you?
jill@jillstahltyler.com I also have a website with more information www.jillstahltyler.com and a FB page that is for the political candidacy, Jill Stahl Tyler for Brattleboro Selectboard. (The links from the website go to the FB page.)
Thanks for spending time with ibrattleboro.com
