For the handful of people who reside in Buels Gore, there truly is no place like home.
Consider that Buels Gore:
Is the fastest growing community in Vermont.
Is the only community in the state with 100 percent voter turnout in the past three elections.
Has Chittenden County's smallest municipal budget by far: $45,675.
"We've also got the highest per capita income in the state," Buels Gore
resident Chris McClure said one night last week as he eyed a
well-stocked plate of cookies at the home of Cynthia Clarke and Oliver
Carling on Gore Road.
"No, no. That's not true anymore," said Garret Mott, seated at the
table next to McClure. "Norwich is higher now." Mott is supervisor of
Buels Gore, a position he was appointed to three years ago by Gov. Jim
Douglas.
"Oh, well, they've got people in Norwich," McClure joked.
Ah, people. That's something Buels Gore mostly lacks -- and hopes to keep that way.
The pie-shaped sliver of land at the southern tip of Chittenden County
is home to just 19 residents, up from 12 in 2000. Its tiny population
helps create the statistical oddities that often put Buels Gore at the
top of the demographic charts in the state.
State-owned forest land accounts for two-thirds of Buels Gore's 3,520
acres. The community has just one public road besides Vermont 17, a
state highway.
Now the gore -- it doesn't classify as a town -- is doing something
very un-gore like: It's drawing up a plan to guide future growth in the
community. Buels Gore wants to have a municipal plan.
"People don't want to see uncontrolled or inappropriate development,"
explained Mott, who is also chairman of the gore's six-member planning
commission.
...
Buels Gore, named after Maj. Elias Buel, a Revolutionary War militia
leader from Connecticut, is one of three gores in Vermont. Gores are
small pieces of land that were never absorbed by a neighboring town.
Residents either commute to jobs in Middlebury, Burlington or
elsewhere, or work by computer out of their homeshouses. Mott, who runs
a software design business out of his home, joked that he moved from
Hanksville, a part of Huntington located a few miles to the north, to
Buels Gore because "I couldn't take the winters anymore."
Despite its remoteness, the community is one of the few that can count
the governor as a regular visitor to its environs. Governor Jim
Douglas, who lives in Middlebury, rides through the gore on Vermont 17
each weekday on his way to and from Montpelier.
"We've watched the number on his license plate go down over the years,"
said McClure, referring to the low-numbered license plates bestowed on
state officials. Douglas served as a state representative,
gubernatorial aide, secretary of state and treasurer before becoming
governor in 2003.
Buels Gore has no school, post office, town hall or commercial
businesses. Clarke and Carling said they get their mail in Starksboro,
vote in Huntington and send their two children to school in Lincoln.
"When you're raising kids, you look for a community to be a part of,"
Clarke said. "There's not a lot of activities here for them."
She said she sometimes wishes Buels Gore had an annual town meeting
like other communities. The Chittenden County Superior Court staff
provides the services a town clerk would, maintaining land records and
filing birth and death certificates.
"I'm so jealous of other towns on Town Meeting Day," she said. "It seems so exciting and it's hard not to be a part of that."
On the other hand, living in the gore has its benefits, she said.
"It's very peaceful," Clarke said. "You can hear the wind, the leaves,
the birds and maybe a car once in a while. I can even hear what music
my sister's playing on her stereo at her house on top of the ridge."
Readers might recall that Stef, Cairo and I took Elizabeth Brown of the LATimes to Buels Gore a few years ago. Part of our 15 minutes of fame!
Sad news from St Jay:
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