OAKHAVEN, Vt. — The Oakhaven Town Council convened a special closed-door session Thursday to determine whether Mayor Barnaby, a nine-year-old Alpine goat elected in a landslide write-in campaign last November, violated municipal ethics laws by accepting unregistered gratuities from local constituents.
The inquiry, spearheaded by Third-District Councilman Arthur Pendleton, centers on a three-pound bag of organic heirloom carrots delivered to the mayor’s paddock on June 4. Under Chapter 7, Section 12 of the Oakhaven Municipal Code, all gifts to public officials exceeding a market value of $5.00 must be logged with the town clerk within 48 business hours.
"The law does not make exceptions for ruminants," Pendleton said during his opening remarks, gesturing to a poster board detailing the retail price of local root vegetables. "If we allow the executive branch to bypass disclosure protocols simply because they lack the opposable thumbs required to fill out Form 109-B, we invite a culture of transactional influence that threatens the very integrity of our zoning board."
The ethics probe has slowed municipal operations in this town of 4,200 to a crawl. Along with the carrots, the three-member committee is investigating allegations of "unauthorized land-use exploitation" regarding Barnaby’s unscheduled grazing on the historic courthouse lawn, as well as the sudden disappearance of a draft proposal for the new municipal sewage bypass, which the mayor allegedly consumed during a press photo opportunity.
Sarah Jenkins, a local attorney representing Barnaby’s administrative estate, argued that the charges are politically motivated. She maintained that the carrots were not a bribe, but rather a "spontaneous, peer-to-peer nutritional transfer" intended to promote community wellness.
"Mayor Barnaby has maintained an open-gate policy since taking office," Jenkins said outside the municipal building, where a small group of supporters held signs reading 'Let Him Chew.' "To characterize gestures of basic agricultural goodwill as dark-money lobbying is a reach, even for this council. Regarding the sewage bypass document, my client’s digestion of the text should be viewed as a symbolic, if literal, veto of unnecessary municipal spending."
During the afternoon session, Barnaby was brought into the council chambers to provide testimony. According to minutes from the hearing, the mayor declined to answer direct questions regarding his relationship with local landscaping firms, choosing instead to rub his horns against the mahogany witness stand and briefly chew the foam windscreen off an administrative microphone—an act the committee formally logged as "willful destruction of municipal recording infrastructure."
The hearing has divided the town. While some residents demand a return to human governance, others point out that Oakhaven's budget deficit has shrunk by 12% since Barnaby took office, largely due to the complete elimination of the mayoral travel budget, salary, and pension contributions.
If found guilty of the infractions, Barnaby faces a formal censure and could be ordered to forfeit the remaining carrots to the state agricultural extension. The council is expected to vote on the resolution next Tuesday. Until then, Barnaby has been placed on a restricted diet of standard dry alfalfa, administered under the direct supervision of an independent, court-appointed custodian.