Someone
asked me, "What happens at a Town Meeting?"
They were considering attending Gray's Annual Town
Meeting for the first time, and I was thrilled to
think that the event was attracting some more people.
It is great that over one hundred came to Saturday's
meeting and discussed the budget. Even better that
so many were prepared, having studied the budget document
and offered their reactions to it.
The Town meeting is a citizen-oriented meeting in
which the people of the town get together and deliberate
the merits of the municipal budget that the Manager
and the Council prepared. This preparation process
usually takes several months, culminating in its presentation
at Town meeting.
A simple majority must pass the budget, which can
be amended to be decreased but not increased, and
a two-thirds majority must pass any motion to move
the question, which stops debate.
All that occurred at the meeting at which over 100
people got together to discuss a complicated and emotional
subject on a 90 degree Saturday in June. This speaks
well of all those who participated, citizens and Council
alike. Representative Susan Austin (R-Gray) and Rep.
Mark Bryant (D-Windham) came, and we thank them for
their attendance.
Frank Bryan, author of "Real Democracy: The New
England Town Meeting And How It Works" says in
his book that "Town meetings come about as close
to paragon status as reasonable people would agree
is possible within the limits of human nature."
Town meeting grew out of the process that church elders
used to decide matters of communal importance. New
England is unique in that the Town meeting, far from
being an anachronistic holdover of Puritan governance,
is a vibrant and ongoing mechanism employed by the
approximately 844 New England towns still deciding
matters of communal importance by getting together
and hashing it out.
So what happens at Town meeting? Democracy happens.
It is a wonderful thing to witness.
