ESSEX, VERMONT

'Essex' is a town in Chittenden County, Vermont, United States. The population was 18,626 at the 2000 census.
Vermont's Circumferential Highway (I-289 or 'Circ') courses through Essex, and the section within Essex's jurisdiction has been completed. However Circ construction has been halted in surrounding communities by court action from environmental protesters.
By population, Essex is the largest town in Vermont, and the the second-largest municipality (after Burlington).
The Town of Essex comprises three voting districts: District 6-2, is also the Village of Essex Junction (a semi independent village within the town), and Districts 6-1 & 6-3 together comprise the town outside the village. The Town and Village each operate their own fire department, library, parks department, and municipal services, and contain separate school districts for grades K–8. Both governments operate a unified police department, and the unified Essex High School.

Contents

Geography

Demographics

Merger

Notable residents

See also

References

External links

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 101.8 km² (39.3 mi²). 101.0 km² (39.0 mi²) of it is land and 0.8 km² (0.3 mi²) of it (0.79%) is water.

Demographics

As of the census² of 2000, there were 18,626 people, 7,013 households, and 5,014 families residing in the town. The population density was 184.4/km² (477.5/mi²). There were 7,170 housing units at an average density of 71.0/km² (183.8/mi²). The racial makeup of the town was 95.37% White, 0.88% African American, 0.19% Native American, 2.25% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.21% from other races, and 1.07% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.85% of the population.
There were 7,013 households out of which 38.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.7% were married couples living together, 8.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.5% were non-families. 21.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 5.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.62 and the average family size was 3.09.
In the town the population was spread out with 27.9% under the age of 18, 6.8% from 18 to 24, 32.5% from 25 to 44, 24.6% from 45 to 64, and 8.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 97.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.8 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $58,441, and the median income for a family was $65,794. Males had a median income of $45,428 versus $27,426 for females. The per capita income for the town was $25,854. About 1.8% of families and 2.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.4% of those under age 18 and 6.6% of those age 65 or over.

Merger

Town vote to merge			Revote
District	2006-11-07		2007-01-23
	Yes	No	Yes	No
6-1 (outside village)	1,283	2,319	690	2,528
6-3 (outside village)	365	822
6-2 (within village)	2,728	1,026	2,009	362
Townwide totals	4,376	4,167	2,699	2,890
Village vote to accept			No revote required, result was uncontested.
	2,922	1,085

The Village of Essex Junction was formed—within the Town of Essex—on 1892-11-15. The Village was formed to provide services (such as sidewalks, water, and sewers) to the villagers that the rest of the, mostly rural, town citizens did not want, and did not want to pay for.
As the town outside the village developed, they gradually added similar serves for themselves, and by 1958, the first hints of merger showed up in a voter petition. Since then a series of votes (often contentious) had defeated or passed merger in each community, but never at the same time in both. (which was required by the state legislature for them to sign off on the merger)
This temporarily changed on 2006-11-07 when merger passed in the town as a whole, and in the village. Everyone in the Town got to vote once on approving the merger, and the Villagers got to vote in a second ballot to accept the merger if it passed the townwide vote. This was confusing enough that the large regional paper misreported the results as a defeat of the merger, based solely on the vote results outside the village.^[1] The next day the correct results were reported in both the town’s paper,^[1] and as a correction in the regional paper.^[1]
On 2006-12-06 a petition to reconsider the merger was submitted to the town. The petition contained signatures totaling more than 5 percent of registered voters, which is the threshold required to force a re-vote.^[1] The revote was held on 2007-01-23 with a result that overturned merger by 191 votes, rejecting the current merger proposal.^[1]
If the results had stood, a multi-year merger process would have resulted in a new 'Town of Essex Junction' replacing the current governments of the ''Town of Essex'' and the ''Village of Essex Junction''.

Notable residents

★ William B. Castle, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.

★ Rod Evans, founding member of the band Deep Purple.

See also

★ Essex Junction, Vermont

References

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External links

★ Essex Vermont Official Website

★ Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce Business and tourism information.

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