Steven Jeffrey, in front of the Vermont Statehouse, where he has been a regular presence during every legislative season since 1978, when he first joined the VLCT as its assistant director. Photo by Amy Ash Nixon/VTDigger
After 37 years with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT) — most of them as its executive director — Steven Jeffrey has seen the issues Vermont communities face time and time again.
In his role leading the group for 33 years, Jeffrey has advocated for municipal government.
Jeffrey, 64, who retires next month, said he originally came up to Vermont to interview for a town manager job in Island Pond in 1978.
He first arrived in Montpelier at the League’s offices. The then-executive director of the VLCT was handling the recruitment for the town manager job, and after two interviews, Jeffrey was offered it.
He had come from Western Massachusetts, and his wife, Marilyn, is from New Hampshire. Both “wanted to get back to the northern tier,” he explained in an interview at his office at City Center in Montpelier on a recent day, and a town job in bucolic Island Pond seemed perfect.
But before he accepted the job, the director of VLCT asked him if he’d instead want to work as an assistant at his own office. For the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. He agreed.
“So he poached from his own members,” said Jeffrey, with a wry smile at how a train ride to Montpelier nearly four decades ago put him on a different track than he’d originally envisioned.
By 1982, he was the executive director, taking over after a difficult period for the organization.
Perennial municipal issues
Many of the issues Jeffrey has worked on over his long tenure at the VLCT remain issues today — not-so-sexy but critically important issues like the price of road salt and sand, insurance needs for towns and cities across Vermont, and, of course … property taxes.
“Property taxes were a problem back then, and they continue to be a problem now,” observed Jeffrey. “They haven’t gone away.”
Local control has remained an issue, as well as transportation funding, he added.
“If there is one thing that I guess the League of Cities and Towns should be trying to protect, it’s the authority to make decisions for ourselves,” he said. “It’s complicated in Vermont; we’re a Dillon’s Rule state.”
That means in Vermont the Legislature “can basically create and destroy anything it wants to.”
“We are creatures of the state,” Jeffrey said.
That’s why he is in watchdog mode at the Vermont Statehouse, speaking on behalf of the league’s member cities and towns.
Jeffrey’s Legacy
Rutland City Mayor Christopher Louras, who served a term in the Legislature about a decade ago and sits on the VLCT board, said he first met Jeffrey at the Statehouse.
He remembers Jeffrey as “that guy over there wearing a bow tie.”
Well known for his signature bow ties, Jeffrey has a collection of about 50 of the dapper neckpieces.
“I’m not going to be the first person to tell you that Steven Jeffrey and the VLCT are one and the same; he is the League, and the League is Steve,” said Louras.
Louras says Jeffrey was always open to new ideas and it was that willingness to explore new approaches helped him build the organization.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, also on the VLCT board, lauded Jeffrey’s dedication. “Through his steady management, attention to detail, and integrity, Steven Jeffrey has built VLCT into a force of support and protection for all Vermont cities and towns, whatever their size.”
Jeffrey’s departure marks a “momentous transition,” for the League, according to VLCT Governing Board President Jared Caldwell of Fayston.
“Steven has done a prodigious job … humility is the word that immediately comes to mind and it disguises an encyclopedic knowledge of the inner workings of local governments, the positions, the strengths and weaknesses of our current system,” he said, of the knowledge base Jeffrey has built.
Jeffrey will be succeeded next month by Maura Carroll of Concord, New Hampshire, who most recently served as the executive director of the New Hampshire Local Government Center, a sister organization to the VLCT.
This link is to the most recent VLCT newsletter, which features a complete piece on Jeffrey’s tenure. For more information on the League’s work, and Carroll, visit the organization’s website here.
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