Tracy Brannstrom
MONTPELIER — The Montpelier City Council appointed resident Paul Costello on Aug. 12 to fill the vacant District 1 seat following former Councilor Adrienne Gil’s resignation in late July.
Costello will serve the remainder of the term, which runs through Town Meeting Day on March 2, 2027, when the seat will be up for election. He told councilors he does not plan to run for the seat at that time.
Now retired, Costello spent more than 20 years as executive director of the Vermont Council on Rural Development. He told councilors that his career involved facilitating public processes in communities across Vermont, working with thousands of residents, helping develop more than 500 local initiatives and working on public policy issues including the COVID-19 response and climate change.
“I feel like I’m an expert at trying to bring people together, and move things forward that are for the common good,” he told the council.
The council received four applications for the seat. Each candidate addressed the council briefly before councilors entered a closed session to discuss the applicants, then returned to public session to appoint Costello.
Keith Schumacher was among those who sought the seat. He has lived in Montpelier for 21 years and recently stepped away from his construction business, Watershed Construction LLC, giving him more time to serve the community. He said he was interested in flood planning and resilience, housing affordability, the city’s livability, homelessness, mental health, and substance use.
Megan Smith, who grew up in central Vermont, has worked as a chef and in retail and earned a degree in adventure education. She said she was interested in converting vacant college dormitories into housing. But Smith was not eligible for the District 1 seat because she lives in District 2.
Councilor Pelin Kohn specifically thanked Smith for applying. “We need more women,” Kohn said. Men currently make up a majority of the six-member council.
Another applicant, Sean Lineham, has served on the city’s Planning Commission for the past two years, including work on zoning regulations. He said he was interested in housing, infrastructure, and downtown resilience.
Lineham said he intends to run for the city council in March, when two District 1 seats will be open: the seat now held by Costello and Councilor Ben Doyle’s two-year seat.
