Do you attend Town Meeting regularly? Are you unable to attend Town Meeting because
of work, lack of child care, or some other valid reason? Or, is Town Meeting something you are
unfamiliar with or just don’t care about?
Town Meeting on the first Tuesday in March is a
uniquely New England institution and is especially revered here in
Vermont. As the population has grown,
however, smaller percentages of voters are attending for a variety of
reasons. Some even in Charlotte have
called into question the value of Town Meeting since budget decisions are being
made by a small minority of the voters.
This issue came to a head last May when a special Town Meeting was held
to reconsider the passage of the article authorizing sidewalks to be built in
the west village. A separate article was
included to change the vote on the town budget to an Australian ballot in the
same way we vote on the school budget.
The budget article was tabled, killing it for the time being.
The discussion regarding the budget article served as
an impetus for a group of Charlotte citizens to get together to study the issue
with the goal of increasing participation in Town Meeting by making it more
accessible. It also included some
attendees who felt that our traditional Town Meeting was no longer suited to
today’s world. So, back in December, a
small group led by Joanna Cummings and John Hammer invited Middlesex Town Clerk
Susan Clark, who co-authored a book about Town Meeting with UVM professor Frank
Bryan called All Those in Favor,
to visit and talk about their research and some of the steps Middlesex has
taken to make their Town Meeting work better.
Clark considers Town Meeting to be a valuable exercise
in direct democracy that is worth preserving.
Some of the points she made include:
- As a vehicle
of direct democracy, no elected representatives intervene between
the citizens and what town government says or how it acts.
- In Vermont every citizen is
a legislator; town government is truly by and of the people.
- Town meetings are
legislatures operated by its citizens.
In order to make Town Meeting more meaningful in
today’s society, it is necessary to understand why people won’t attend the
meeting and what the real issues are. Do
they feel intimidated by the process? Is
it not worth their time? Do they lack
the information they need to feel competent to participate? To gather information on the reasons and
attitudes of its citizens, Middlesex conducted a town-wide survey, not only on
paper, but through living room meetings.
They also created an “operator’s manual” as a guide to how Town Meeting
works. Every new voter also gets a
welcome letter that includes a two-page description of the Town Meeting process
and encourages them to attend. They also
provide child care, make food available, and have moved the meeting to the
evening with a set time for the budget discussion to begin. They have even experimented with remote
participation via web-streaming and teleconferencing.
The Charlotte group has since expanded and is developing
some recommendations to Charlotte’s Selectboard for discussion. The aim is to increase participation at Town
Meeting by making it more accessible and to make people more aware of its
importance both to our community and to our democracy. This ad hoc committee is also working to
expand discussion within the community before Charlotters make any decision
that would irrevocably destroy a valuable Vermont institution for our town. Anyone who would like to participate in our
discussions is encouraged to contact John Hammer at 802-870-3481 or via email
at TownMeeting05445@gmail.com.
As the new session of the
Vermont legislature begins, I look forward to again sharing with you important
developments in future articles. As
before, I invite you to contact me with your concerns and opinions via email (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com) or via phone (425-3960).
