Town Meeting

It is Town Meeting season, that time of year toward the end of winter when there is more daylight and maybe less snow and you can get to town and back with a horse and wagon after throwing a few punches at your neighbor over the cost of building a new school, apportioning land, and repairing roads so things can get to market and people get to church.

I don’t know, really, but it sounds like that would have been the idea when things first got going.

Town Meeting is a uniquely New England custom. The practice followed a few pioneers out west but may have substantially perished there as a result of the distances between ponderosas. Westerners had more room to roam. And it became the Wild West. They walked around with guns, defending their stakes by relying on them, until the arrival of more women and children and rules of law and order. Here, in New England, Town Meeting has remained the principal form of local government.

 Of course, for those of you who have not experienced Town Meeting in thickly populated settlements around, say, Boston, I confirm that as of ten to fifteen years ago it was getting clunky. Meetings were stretching across three to four weeknights, addressing the concerns of twelve to fifteen thousand residents, very few of whom could invest the time to participate because of needing to work late, being stuck in traffic, taking kids to band practice, or helping with homework. In our town at the time, Town Meeting was broadcast on the cable access channel, which was useful. We had it going in the background during homework, dinner, tub, and bedtime. When there were big issues, we could anticipate when to jump in the car—one of us, at least—race to the venue, park (at the farthest end of the High School lot), check-in, mingle, wait for the issue to be called and vote. Then go home. A friend finally said, enough, we need a mayor, someone we can hire and fire if we choose four years later. Town Meeting had become inaccessible to a representative majority. I agreed. By now, they may have figured out how to use technology to allow people to participate from their living rooms, certainly fine if the voting is secure, though there is no avoiding the irreverent Town Meeting parties and beer cans tossed against the TV screen.

In our town in Southern New Hampshire, the usual rabble gathered on the first floor of the Meeting House on the third Thursday of the month to consider a new bridge (really a large culvert), some updates to zoning ordinances (for instance, acknowledging our reliance on modern equipment such as renewable energy systems), and shifting money around for rainy days. No car dealerships to worry about, or office parks, not much traffic congestion to speak of, no exceptions requested for heavy industry. None of that. The Moderator–the presider--read the maple syrup report, respectfully submitted by our local producer. Syrup makers started tapping early because of mild temperatures in January. Happily, no one raised the specter of global warming because some things are better left to the nether regions of government, where mud collects. Every article passed with unanimous consent, in an atmosphere of constructive engagement. The chair of the Select Board was given a bouquet and a standing ovation for her twelve years of service as a Select Board member.  A lifelong resident, speaking to the question of the new bridge, recalled rumbling over the bridge before this bridge as a boy, which he took to go fishing with his father up on Willard Pond. He proposed a return to the thick timbers of those days for all the memories they provided, which people seconded as worth having. The Moderator recommended the coffee, tea, and baked goods provided, as always, by the Volunteer Fire Department. After two hours the meeting adjourned, although I drove by an hour or so later to fetch groceries and there were still people mingling out front catching up on other news and business.

Somedays it works just fine. It can be done. 

(Published, March 26, 2024 in the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript)