Town Meeting

Today it’s the government’s turn to take a beating. New England is infamous, I mean famous, for our Town Meeting form of government. Now I don’t mean your jumped-up city council, representative forms, Mayor, or other big city things. No Town Meeting is Annual in the spring, and maybe a special one in the fall for unsettled business. It can be polite, note that I said can be. Or it can be a caucus, “get the rope” sort of thing where everyone gets their ya-ya’s out. It can be cathartic!

The idea is that every qualified citizen of the Town has a vote and a direct say in all the Town’s business. It’s run by a Moderator, who keeps order with a gavel. Get too out of line and Bang Bang Bang you are “gaveled down” – go back to your seat and cool your heels.

I’ve attended many Town Meetings over my years in New England. When I was doing fieldwork in a tiny town in Maine (490 people), I was actually ejected as a spy for a neighboring town until some of the people I was working with convinced the moderator that I was a good person and faithful to the local community. That was a great Meeting. Screaming, yelling, accusations that the Moderator was taking bribes from Summer Complaints ( summer residents) and that, of course, the tax assessments were too high. It ran until four in the morning with only one recess for a breather. At the end, everyone had had their say, and the Town Warrant ( a document with articles that the town needed to vote on) looked like confetti. And the moderator was so frazzled and unshaven that he was a bit hirsute. But everyone had had their say, and compromises had, sometimes literally, been hammered out.

Since then, I attended Town Meetings in the Town where I used to live, and the one in which I work ( doing recordings of the meeting). One year, I was part of a Meeting that lasted for seven evenings. Serious stuff, people! And like other governmental systems, those that show up decide what will be done. It can be a heartless and unsentimental process, and feelings can and do get hurt.

All registered voters are eligible to be members of the Town Meeting, but in fact, for many years, only a small percentage show up. But have something on the agenda like a data center in town, and your school auditorium better have overflow capacity because all of a sudden everyone in Town is there, and they want their turn at the microphone. Do I hear rumbles of dissatisfaction?

So, turning the prompt about, I’d say that more places need a good old-fashioned Town Meeting. Those who show up and do the work make the decisions, set the budget, and have a complete say in what happens. There are no pettifogging ‘crats in thousand-dollar suits piously proclaiming the merits. Hell, the moderator imposed the three-minute rule! Bozo the clown is over time! Get the Master of Arms to evict him.

Does the Town Meeting always make the right decision? Hell no. But the dudes in thousand-dollar suits and their henchmen with valises can be literally run out of Town on a rail!

Great theatre, folks, and everyone has an opportunity to speak out. Unlike how many governments operate.

And that’s my story, a bit sarcastic, and parially in jest, but something to think about, and I’m stickin’ to it!