Essex, Vermont
| Essex, Vermont | |
|---|---|
| Town | |
| Motto: "Crossroads of Chittenden County" | |
 Location in Chittenden County and the state of Vermont. |
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 Essex, Vermont
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| Coordinates: 44°30′7″N 73°5′38″W / 44.50194°N 73.09389°WCoordinates: 44°30′7″N 73°5′38″W / 44.50194°N 73.09389°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Vermont |
| County | Chittenden |
| Incorporated | June 7, 1763 |
| Area | |
| • Total | 39.3 sq mi (101.8 km2) |
| • Land | 38.8 sq mi (100.6 km2) |
| • Water | 0.5 sq mi (1.3 km2) |
| Elevation | 486 ft (148 m) |
| Population (2010) | |
| • Total | 19,587 |
| • Estimate (2015) | 20,946 |
| • Density | 534/sq mi (206.1/km2) |
| Time zone | Eastern (EST) (UTC−5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC−4) |
| ZIP codes | 05451-05452 |
| Area code | 802 |
| FIPS code | 50-24175 |
| GNIS feature ID | 1462091 |
| Website | www |
Essex is a town in Chittenden County, Vermont, United States. With an estimated population of 20,946 in 2015, Essex is the most populous town in Vermont and second most populous municipality after Burlington. It is home to the village of Essex Junction, which includes the state of Vermont's busiest Amtrak station and largest private employer, GlobalFoundries. Vermont Route 289 crosses the town from east to west.
The town was incorporated on June 7, 1763, named after the Earl of Essex.
The village of Essex Junction was formed—within the town of Essex—on November 15, 1892. 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 services 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 November 7, 2006, when merger passed in the town as a whole, and in the village. The town as a whole (including the village) got to vote once on the merger, and the village, separately, got to vote in a second ballot to accept the merger if it passed the townwide vote. This was confusing enough that the regional paper misreported the results as a defeat of the merger, based solely on the vote results outside the village. The next day the correct results were reported in both the town's paper, and as a correction in the regional paper.
On December 6, 2006, 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. The revote was held on January 23, 2007, with a result that overturned the merger by 191 votes, rejecting the current merger proposal.
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