When “something” is broken it means that “something” no longer works as intended. Marblehead’s open Town Meeting is conceptually the purest form of democracy where any registered voter MAY discuss and vote on all matters of the Town. But as any MHS grad that passed MCAS should know, there is a difference between may and can. Not all voters can attend Town Meeting in today’s world.
— Parents with school-aged children
— New England commuters
— Residents working second jobs
— Home-bound seniors
— Off-shore fishermen and merchant mariners
— Military service members
— Disabled residents
— Grandparents and retirees
— College students
— World-traveling professionals
— On-duty police, fire, and first responders
Democracy means rule by the people. Only 5% of voters turned out last May. Some of the most important issues impacting our wallet were not even on the warrant. This is hardly a democracy envisioned by our founders.
Our last Town Meeting and today’s social media forums are dominated by a vocal oligarchy of strange bedfellows — ultra-financially conservative, anti-change townies threatened by the cost of town living and ultra-fanatic “Town free or die” idealists. These perspectives are definitely valid, but there are many more in Town.
Historical Town Meeting turnouts
Town Meeting attendance records are extremely difficult to find. But it’s a good guess that they have declined over the last 350 years.
In 1649, when the first Town Meeting was held, there were 44 town families in a time before women voted. It’s not hard to believe that nearly 100% of 22 men attended.
The first registered voter numbers I could find were for 1885; the first Town Meeting attendance numbers for 1881. Extrapolating, I estimate the turn-out for 1881 was 40 to 50%. Article 4 dealt with elections. Thirty-three men received at least one vote for a Selectman position. In the 1880s and early 1890s, the number of warrant articles ranged from 17 to 28. Town Meeting starting times were 8 or 9 a.m. on a March Monday.
Over the last four years, Town Meeting turnout has sunk to 3% – 5% of registered voters.
Town Meeting has been broken for a long time. Forty-five years ago in 1979, Town Meeting struggled to reach a quorum of 300, just a 2% turn-out, for 68 articles over three days. In that July, an ad-hoc group of 30 town leaders met on Chuck Beringer’s 72-foot yacht to discuss the reasons for poor turnout and possible solutions. Problems cited included the length of the warrant, transportation, parking, babysitting, conflict with Bruins playoff games, the impacts of nice May weather and daylight savings time.
Numerous solutions were proposed for the obvious problems. But after a few beverages they included taxing those who don’t attend, closing all bars for the night and placing a nuclear power issue on the warrant each year. As far as I can tell, nothing was ever done. The 1984 warrant, five years later, and last May’s warrant look exactly the same.
Changing place, time, format and support
More recently, several towns including Acton, Andover, Boxborough, Concord and Weston have formed study committees to develop recommendations for improving open Town Meeting:
· Place high-interest articles like the MBTA Communities Act, operating budget overrides and capital budget debt exclusions directly on an election ballot without a Town Meeting vote. The last town election had 20% turnout compared to 5% for Town Meeting. Last November’s election had a whopping 83% turnout. Online and in-person debates and media articles would be critical to educating voters.
· Alternatively, discuss and vote on any high-interest article at a specific time.This would allow those who cannot attend the entire meeting to participate. The exact time and article sequencing needs to ensure meeting quorums.
· Convene the meeting at 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon after Saturday and Sunday morning religious services and youth events like sports.
· Provide free childcare in the Veterans School classrooms. High school students would provide this care for community service credits.
· Transport the elderly and disabled for free.
· Conduct two meetings each year. One in the spring before the start of the fiscal year for financially oriented articles. And a second in the fall for other articles. Special meetings could always be convened.
In my view, the Holy Grail would be a hybrid Town Meeting providing in-person and remote, on-line participation. There are solutions today that enable presentation, discussion, voting and meeting control and they will only get better. But once again overbearing, antiquated state law prohibits it. The state does, however, have a study committee that may weigh-in with recommendations sometime this century.
Reimagining the warrant
Speaking of weigh-in, the warrant needs to go on Wegovy or Zepbound for fast weight loss. Another way to increase attendance is to reduce the amount of time and effort required to attend. The 2024 meeting required seven hours, 17 minutes over two evenings even with electronic voting. A goal — reduce the time to less than four hours so it can be completed in one evening or afternoon.
Town Meeting also needs a Capital One reimagining for modern times. We should not maintain the “as usual”, to quote Erin Noonan, Select Board chair, framework of what the warrant is, does and its hodgepodge of articles. Consider what we do and do not vote on. For example, Town Meeting votes on:
· $100 Town Moderator budget but not the $9.3 billion aggregate real estate valuation, its $84.1 million tax levy and tax rate
· Salaries and pay scales of all municipal employees, but none for the school department
· Municipal service operating budgets for 29 departments, but only one $46.7 million operating budget for the schools
· Operating budgets for some of our enterprise services — water, sewer, harbor — but not their service rates. And no votes for the Light Department.
Below is a comparison of the Town Meeting votes taken last May compared to a reimagined warrant. There were 53 articles and Article 26 encompassed 10 extra votes for a total of 63 votes.
Highlights of this reimagined warrant:
· Total votes reduced from 63 to 33, a reduction of 50%.
· Municipal services operating budget votes reduced from 18 to one. Of the 18 votes taken last May, an average of 85% of voters voted yes. We would no longer have to sit through the tedious approval of pay scales, salaries and the multitude of department specific budgets.
· The scope of votes would be expanded in a few areas. Aggregate real estate valuation, tax levy and tax rate would require approval, not just the amount of free cash used to reduce the tax rate. For our enterprise funds, approval of their entire operations including operating budget, capital budget and rates or rate changes would be required.
· A few financial articles combined municipal services and school items. These would be segregated in a reimagined warrant to understand the complete cost of schools versus municipal services.
· Any new or changes in taxes, fees, zoning, land use, town election rules, etc. would still require approval.
· Citizen petitions are a problem. Of the 12 on the warrant last year, eight were withdrawn or indefinitely postponed. Nuisance articles are wasting our time and money to process, print and consider. The number of signatures required should be increased from a measly 10 to something more significant like 50, the same number required to run for town office. There should be limits on how frequently a topic can be placed on the warrant — perhaps 10 years for leaf blower regulations. Otherwise, we will be voting on leaf blowers each year until the trees die from climate change.
I don’t advocate abandoning open Town Meeting. But we do need to fix it. It’s past time to do something radical. It won’t be easy. Changes in by-laws, special acts and overbearing state laws will be required. If the changes don’t work, who cares? Open Town Meeting is already broken. It can’t get worse. Then we might have to consider a different type of representative democratic government.
