GUILFORD-The current chair of the Selectboard and the person who has been suing him and his fellow board members for the past two years are facing off in the Tuesday, Aug. 13 Democratic primary in the Windham-1 district.
Selectboard chair Zon Eastes, 70, is running against Jason Herron, 48.
In the Tuesday, Nov. 5 general election, the winner will face Nancy Gassett, who is unopposed as the Republican nominee for the seat.
The incumbent, Guilford Democrat Rep. Sara Coffey, who was chair of the House Committee on Transportation, is stepping down because of family issues. Coffey has endorsed Eastes, who has lived in Vermont since 1982, as her replacement.
Eastes, who has served on the town Selectboard since 2019 and now serves as chair, is well-known as a musician, conductor, and teacher. He earned degrees from the University of New Mexico and Stony Brook University.
He spent six years at the Vermont Arts Council as director of outreach and advancement.
For nearly 20 years, Eastes worked as a cellist and conductor, teaching and coaching at the Brattleboro Music Center, where he also served as executive director. He has also worked at Amherst College, Dartmouth College, and Keene State College.
He is currently the music director of the Juno Orchestra.
Herron grew up in Vernon and lives on Lakeridge Maple Farm, where the onetime concrete contractor now farms maple syrup, creates maple products, and produces firewood and lumber, according to his filing with the Secretary of State's office.
His main priority, he says in his campaign ads, is protecting the country's food supply and how it is impacting the environment.
Herron turned down an interview request for this story after The Commons refused to provide questions in advance. (It did not provide questions to Eastes, either.)
"I think I'll pass on the interview," Herron said in an email. "It's impossible to compare candidates if the questions aren't universal. I would love to debate my opponent or answer policy questions he also must respond to.
"However, allowing a person I've never met, ask me questions I've not seen to prepare for (which admittedly might be different than my opponent's questions), who then has editorial privilege for the answers I give, doesn't seem like a prudent political strategy."
Conductor as community builder
"I want to run a campaign that's about me and that's positive," Eastes told The Commons.
His campaign website outlines a platform of support for the environment, for schools, and for children, elders, and families. He calls for "preserving the character of our towns" while preparing for their future needs.
Besides being a musician, Eastes has had arts management jobs, including as the executive director of the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council in Oregon.
But he said his experience as a conductor has aided him in his work on the Selectboard.
"My skills as an orchestra conductor have been some of the most instructive skills I've had in how to build momentum, how to build [an] agenda - and not just my own personal agenda," Eastes said.
"In fact, as a conductor, you can't really have your own agenda because there's so many things going on," he continued.
He called himself "a community builder."
"It's really what I am," Eastes said. "And so it was a very natural fit for me to move over from being a musician [...] to focus more into management and leading organizations, which I've done a fair amount of as well."
Among the organizations supporting Eastes is Vermont Conservation Voters (VCV), who called him "an exciting new candidate," said Justin Marsh, VCV's political director. "He possesses values that align well with our mission while offering his experience as a Selectboard member and his collaborative approach."
Marsh said that those traits "will serve his constituents well and help Vermont maintain its leadership in the fight for climate action and community resilience."
"During his tenure, the Selectboard has successfully managed the town through both unique challenges and tremendous opportunities," said Konstantin von Krusenstiern, of the Committee to Elect Zon Eastes. "Over the years, he has also assisted a broad array of nonprofit organizations with strategic planning, capacity building, and evaluation."
'Jason is, in fact, not a Democrat'
Herron, a candidate with no immediately identifiable website, grew up in Vernon and graduated from Brattleboro Union High School in 1994.
The former concrete contractor told the Brattleboro Reformer that he worked for a decade in the nuclear industry as a radiation protection technician.
In 2014, he and a friend, Jason Macie, purchased property in Guilford and launched Lakeridge Maple LLC. State corporate records show that Macie left the company in 2022.
He and his partner, Lyndsey Mitchell, have a young son, Lincoln, who he described to the Reformer as "an absolute blessing."
Herron, who in his political advertising has identified himself as a former registered Republican, has now changed political parties.
"Considering that most voters in Vernon and Guilford vote as Democrats, I can think of no better method to appeal directly to those voters than by participating in the Democratic primary," he wrote in an advertisement in The Commons.
In his advertising, Herron said his platform "revolves around our climate and food security."
"Regenerative farming and the local sourcing of food ensures our community's rural culture while promoting local economic growth, overall human health, and our national security," he wrote. "Regenerative farming also restores soil, and nothing sequesters carbon like a pasture of green grass."
He said he believes this focus "resonates heavier with Democrat voters than it does with Republicans" in an age of political divisiveness.
Despite his embrace of the Democratic Party label, the Guilford Democratic Committee does not endorse Herron. Its chairperson, Anne Rider, knows and supports Eastes.
"The town Democratic Committee certainly supports and was excited by Zon's candidacy," Rider said. "And we feel very, very good about that."
The Democrats were "were never informed about [Herron's candidacy], or in any way involved with it," she added.
In the 2022 election, Herron was active in the campaign of Nancy Gassett, who was Coffey's Republican opponent, Rider said.
"It just seemed very odd on the surface that he is running as a Democrat in this race. Jason is, in fact, not a Democrat," she said.
Herron has espoused views at odds with Democrats and no doubt many moderate Republicans as well, said Paula Marks, also a member of the Guilford Democratic Committee.
"After repeated losses at the local level, his candidacy seems to be a bid to give us a 'choice' in November between two like-minded people deeply hostile to current local and state government," Marks said.
"I hope simple ethics will prevail on Aug. 13 in advancing Zon Eastes - a thoughtful, conscientious community leader - as the Democratic candidate in the November election," she added.
Disruptive behavior
As he described it in posts to the Discover Guilford Vermont! Facebook group, Herron's political awakening came in late 2021, when he heard about the Selectboard's ouster of the entire Planning Board.
"So, out of curiosity, I started watching some previous sessions to see what she was talking about. I had never paid any attention to the Selectboard before and had no idea who any of the members were," he wrote.
Herron immediately took interest in learning about the proposal to build a $1.2 million addition to the Guilford Free Library.
Immediately, he publicly questioned the actions of then-Chair Richard Wizansky, who was also a trustee and treasurer of the library.
"Regardless of intentions or his individual merit, this is a clear conflict of interest," he wrote.
The library addition was initially approved by voters but after Herron's scrutiny of the project's cost and public processes, a petition drive successfully forced a revote, this one rejecting project.
Herron has since been a consistent presence at Guilford Selectboard meetings for the past few years, with a pattern of lodging complaints about town officials' behavior around spending, open meetings, conflicts of interest, and similar issues of transparency and public accountability.
"I probably attend more than half the meetings by Zoom and about a quarter of them in person," said resident Marty Ramsburg. "I feel like it's one of the ways of understanding our community and our neighbors. And within probably the last two years, Jason has demanded more attention than most of the town issues."
Herron always attends the meetings, almost always by Zoom, Ramsburg said.
"Jason's primary objective seems to be to convince people that they should not trust any of their elected officials," said Rider, a former longtime board member.
"I think he's trying to make sure that those elected officials are not able to do the work for which they are elected," she added.
Herron repeats accusations even if they have been proven to be untrue, or "if they don't like the answers the Selectboard give, whether they're backed up by fact, or whether they're reasonable or not," observed Sheila Morse, former Selectboard member and former town administrator.
"Why?" she asked. "What is the goal of repeating lies, and making innuendos so consistently? Is this the Donald Trump method of attacks - attack until they become the norm? And people start to believe them because they're repeated so often?"
Two lawsuits dismissed
Herron has sued the Selectboard twice, for denial of access to public records and for violations of the Open Meeting Law, losing in the lower courts and taking both suits all the way to the Vermont Supreme Court.
The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts' dismissals of the two cases, calling one "without merit."
"Why did [Herron] find it necessary to take the Selectboard to court and appeal decisions at a tremendous cost to the taxpayers?" Morse said.
The first suit cost the town $23,000, according to Town Administrator Erika Elder. For the second one, which was recently dismissed, the attorney's bill is $25,605 and is expected to be more than $30,000 before it is settled.
"We used to have, in a normal year, no more than $5,000 of legal fees," Morse said. "And it would be dealing with things like personnel issues, or helping us create a personnel policy."
Now the town budget is $60,000 a year.
"And that's all taxpayer funds," she said.
Matters of respect
Critics of Herron, whose advertising discusses the poisonous consequences of political divisiveness, point to his pattern of engaging in that same behavior at municipal meetings.
"We all live in Vermont," Ramsburg said. "Those of us who live in these small communities know each other And we don't agree on everything. But we mostly are cordial and respectful. And we can talk to each other."
That, she said, is "that's the thing that has eroded in the last couple of years."
"From my perspective, it feels like this distrust has permeated and gone far beyond this little sphere," Ramsburg said, as Herron has "successfully politicized our day-to-day lives."
"You just don't trust the people you don't know as well anymore," she said. "And that's sad."
Herron brings a negativity that Ramburg said she can't quite name.
"But it's really personal," she said. "And negative, so negative."
At board meetings, Ramsburg said, "if you disagree with Jason, you're just wrong."
"And that's the other thing," she said. "You're intentionally misrepresented if you disagree with him."
When Herron participates in a board meeting, "he's acknowledged by the board chair, who, most of the time that I've been watching or been involved, has been Zon," Ramsburg said. "Then Jason says something like, 'Thank you, Mr. Chairman.' So he sounds very respectful initially."
But "within probably three sentences, his pitch has elevated," she continued. "He's working himself into a lather. And he's getting very upset, and indignant. And the indignity is about the Selectboard being a cabal. And the meetings are violations of Open Meeting Law. And they're making decisions for which they don't want public input."
If somebody - usually Eastes as chair - interrupts to say something, Herron accuses them of lying, Ramsburg said.
"I've heard Jason say multiple times. 'That's a lie! You're lying!' So it becomes a very personal attack. I hear that word, 'lie,' and immediately my blood pressure goes up," she said. "It's an accusation. It's aggressive."
Some people in Guilford say the town is the canary in the coal mine and that if disruptive and far-right shenanigans are successful at creating divisiveness in a tiny border town, they can spread all over the state.
"I want to alert other communities," Ramsburg said.
In his run for Selectboard in 2022, Herron acknowledged his temperament in a campaign letter to voters.
"I don't set out to purposefully offend," he wrote. "I realize my style of directness can be off-putting to some. Please don't focus on me, my personality, or my delivery. Instead, take a critical look at the facts, circumstances, and evidence I am presenting."
Revamping the U.S. Constitution
Herron has also come under scrutiny for his involvement with an initiative called the Convention of States, which seeks to convene a Constitutional convention under Article 5 to revamp and revise the U.S. Constitution.
He helms the Vermont branch of the organization, which he has publicly defended as an advocate of instituting term limits for politicians at a Constitutional level.
The organization's national website states its mission is to impose "fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress."
In a political ad, Herron said, "I am grateful for our Constitution and particularly the Bill of Rights contained in its pages."
The Center for Media and Democracy, however, calls the Convention of States a "push by far-right groups to radically rewrite the Constitution."
The nonprofit watchdog group charges that groups on the far right - bankrolled by Big Oil, Koch Industries, and right-wing mega-donors - want to rewrite the Constitution to take the United States back 100 years to a time that was largely devoid of federal oversight.
The Convention of States is the brainchild of Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, who said on Fox News that critics are correct when they say his goal is "to reverse 115 years of progressivism."
"We say, 'Yes, it is,'" Meckler said.
Coffey endorses a successor
One prominent supporter of Eastes: Coffey, who holds the seat.
"If you know Zon, you know that he has given a lot of service to our community through his work in the arts and as a community volunteer, most recently as the chair of the Guilford Selectboard," she wrote in a letter to her constituents.
She called him "a thoughtful, balanced, and experienced leader with great communication and leadership skills" as well as "a qualified and caring person."
At Eastes' campaign kickoff, which was held at her home, Coffey said, "Zon brings a wealth of experience and a deep commitment to our community. His dedication to public service and his ability to listen and respond to the needs of local residents make him an ideal candidate for the Vermont House."
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.