BRATTLEBORO-After 14 years as assistant town manager, Patrick Moreland is stepping down to become the executive director of DVFiber, the nonprofit fiber-optic Internet provider serving southeastern Vermont.
Moreland has been assistant town manager since 2011, serving with Barbara Sondag, then–town manager. Her tenure was followed by those of Peter Elwell, Yoshi Manale, and current Town Manager John Potter.
Moreland did stints as interim town manager twice: for six months in 2022 and for a 19-month "opportunity," as he calls it, in 2013–14.
Current Selectboard Chair Daniel Quipp has served among the longer terms on the board working with Moreland.
"I'm thankful to Patrick for his service to the town," Quipp says. "Patrick has been a vital part of the town leadership for many years and has been a great help to town managers, Selectboard, town staff, and the public."
Quipp says that Moreland "has gone about his work in a calm, thoughtful way and has always cared about a job well done. He'll be missed, and I wish him well in his new position."
Moreland will leave his post with the town on March 24 to take on his new role - with a municipality of a different kind - charged with "building a publicly managed Internet utility."
A new role with a longtime connection
"I'm absolutely thrilled to be starting this new position with DVFiber," Moreland says. "This is an organization I've been a part of since the very beginning, and I have a deeply felt commitment to the mission. I look forward to working with representatives from our 24 towns to bring high-speed fiber internet to the rural parts of southeastern Vermont."
In 2019, Vermont enacted the law to create communication union districts in a bill championed by Rep. Laura Sibilia (I-Dover). Moreland has served on the board of DVFiber since its inception in 2020.
"It's actually a municipality, like a waste district or water district is a municipality," he explains. "It's a public Internet utility, with the mission to extend high-speed Internet access to unserved portions of rural Vermont."
DVFiber - legally, the Deerfield Valley Communications Union District - "started in Stamford, then Readsboro, Halifax, and Whitingham, and we're moving now into Marlboro," Moreland says.
"We're seeing to it that every customer has access. More and more people are recognizing that communication is essential for participation in community - for participation in society, for tele-health, for educating the kids - so we can't leave anybody behind," he adds.
In his new job, Moreland will deal with budgets, contract management, and working with a board.
"It's very exciting," he said. "And it's such a need. Some of these places, for example, where I live in Marlboro, have been waiting a very, very long time."
The state's path to bringing broadband to the "last mile" - the end consumer - in far-flung districts has been bumpy. In Marlboro, an attempt by Great Auk Wireless in 2007 and 2008 to deploy technology to bring broadband communications to small-town customers fizzled, an effort that Moreland witnessed firsthand as chair of the town's broadband committee.
"The commercial operators have chosen not to pursue these areas, but we're going there," he says. "The state has been exceedingly supportive of the work we're doing, and public investment is building."
DVFiber President Steven John says Moreland "brings effective project management, support for a thriving local economy, and a commitment to serving the public good. Under his leadership, DVFiber will continue to build your publicly owned and operated fiber network to reach the last mile throughout our Communications Union District."
As a founding member of the DVFiber Governing Board, Moreland has played a key role in bringing Brattleboro, the region's largest population center, into the Communications Union District.
Moving on
Moreland says DVFiber first hired an executive director two years ago, and he was definitely interested, but "it wasn't a really good time to leave Brattleboro because Yoshi [Manale] had left, and John Potter hadn't arrived."
"So 2½ years later, the position opened up, and I just absolutely had to go for it," he says.
Moreland says, too, that while he did not apply for the town manager job after Manale, he did apply during his 19-month stint as interim town manager during the second of what came to be four searches to fill the post.
He and the Selectboard at the time, Moreland said, "did not move forward together" to put him in the manager's post.
Asked what it's like after an election that changes the composition of the Selectboard, Moreland says it's business as usual, no matter who's in the seats.
"When you work in the position I do, you work with whoever wins," he says. "Staff stay completely neutral, and when you do that, after a while, you are neutral."
Asked if he's just tired of hearing from vocal residents in town who tend not to agree with the current budget and other actions of the current board, Moreland chuckled.
"The heat's not all that hot. Others have perspectives from time to time and that is a challenge," he says diplomatically. "But what they want is the best for Brattleboro. And so do I. I love Brattleboro.
"I am not running away, I'm running to," Moreland says. "And I have a huge soft spot for the community of Brattleboro. While my bedroom is in Marlboro, my waking hours are all spent right here. This is where I shop and live in community with others, and it's important to me that this community is successful."
Looking back
Among the memorable moments of his 14 years here, Moreland first notes Tropical Storm Irene.
"I had never experienced anything even remotely like that," he says.
He started work on Aug. 28, 2011, just as the storm was winding down and the flooding was beginning.
"I started on Sunday, and we had the aftermath of the flood on Monday, and that started the longest week ever," Moreland says.
"In some ways it was great, because if I had started the job six months later, I wouldn't have had the experience of working with the team hand-in-hand during a crisis […]. We all just got thrown in and [had to] get to it."
He called it "such a striking moment for the town."
"So I was happy to have been here to be part of the team that helped get us back up on our feet," he says.
Moreland also found the transition to pay-as-you-throw trash disposal an "exciting and challenging project."
"And we expanded the organics collection from a small pilot project to nearly town-wide," he says. "That's the greatest example of real-world recycling I can think of: people's food scraps from right here that get turned into good compost right there."
One technical matter that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic stands out for the outgoing assistant town manager.
"Putting our Representative Town Meeting on Zoom," Moreland says, "was an undertaking."
Participation was challenging, he says - not only because a meeting with 150 people had to be orchestrated online, but also because "we had to do that simultaneously to allow the public in but also protect the integrity of the vote process so only Town Meeting members could vote."
"It was a bit of a challenge, but it was exciting," Moreland says.
He also recalls conducting town business during the pandemic, a time Moreland says was "crazy."
Potter is grateful for Moreland's institutional knowledge of town affairs.
"Patrick has helped shape numerous conversations when planning for Brattleboro's future through his thorough understanding of its past," says Potter. "He's been an incredible resource for town staff, and we have appreciated his perspective."
The Selectboard plans to work with Potter to see what is needed in both the short- and long-term regarding the assistant town manager position, said Selectboard member Elizabeth McLoughlin.
"Patrick has been our anchor in town government for many years," McLoughlin told The Commons. "He is known for his ability to be 'the explainer' of all things from the trash contract to how to sign in for Selectboard meetings or RTM."
She said Moreland "will be missed for his practical knowledge and his institutional memory. Most of all though, he is truly a nice guy, and I wish him well in his future endeavors."
Asked if there is anything else he wants to tell Brattleboro residents, Moreland responded quickly.
"Take care, and I'll see you soon," he says.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.