Q&A with Acton Town Moderator - Don MacKenzie

This past Town Meeting was Don MacKenzie’s 35^th time as the Acton Town Moderator. MacKenzie is no stranger to local government structures and the basics of management. He studied Political Science at Brown University, worked a long career in a subsidiary of AT&T Inc., as a chairman and chief executive officer and has volunteered in Acton ever since he moved to town in 1966.

Q&A with Don MacKenzie – Acton Town Moderator:

Q: As the Town Moderator, do you keep yourself informed about the major issues going on in Acton?

A: “That is a really good question – and there are two theories on it –one is yes you should and the other is no you shouldn’t. You’ve got to be viewed as totally impartial – this is the most important thing for a Moderator. You have to be viewed by the town as totally impartial on the issues and if you’re not then they think you’re rigging the Town Meeting against them.”

“So what I do is to try and keep abreast of the major issues in Acton, but very silently. I watch the meetings on TV quite often. I rarely go to the meetings because people would ask me what I think about things and I don’t want to tell them. What I’ve learned over time is that each Town does things differently and what we do works for us.”

Q: You seem to moderate the Town Meeting with a sense of humor. Do you find that important do to keep the audience interested?

A: “A certain amount of people will come out because they believe in the process and a certain amount of people come out because they want to enjoy themselves – they don’t want it to be a drudge. That means I have to risk being a little less serious than at times and a little more humorous than maybe I would have been normally, too.”

Q: What was your opinion on the voter turn out at this Town Meeting? It was estimated that 294 people were in the audience Monday night and 191 people were there Tuesday night – as apposed to the 13,776 registered voters in Acton.

A: “You can’t force people to come out. They come out when there are issues that they are concerned about. Just within the last few years we’ve had 1,500 people here at a special Town Meeting and we’ve had as many as 3,000-plus at Town Meetings from time to time when we are discussing things like adding some town to the regionalized school district.”

“Would I like to see more people come out? I mean, we have 13,000 registered voters in Acton and they are all entitled to come and participate - and to think that you get 300 as apposed to 1,000 or 2,000 – you would like to see more people.”

Q: Have you always been interested in local town government?

A: “Yeah, I have been. I was a Political Science major in college, so I was interested in politics and government structures and when I came to Acton I thought I wanted to be a participant – and I am probably a better participant than I am a spectator. I’d rather be involved in the game than just sitting on the sidelines.”

Q: How do you describe the role of a Moderator?

A: “Well the Town Moderator presides over the legislative branch of Acton’s town government. That means, you are the one who presides at Town Meeting – not only the annual Town Meeting but the special Town Meetings because in average we have three Town Meetings a year.”

“The Town Moderator determines who speaks, how long they speak for and when to try and get people to want to vote. You are the parliamentarian and you have to understand what motions are acceptable and what motions are unacceptable and if they are framed properly. You have to count the vote and make the determination whether the yay’s or nay’s have it. And that is generally pretty easy because the votes aren’t always close but sometimes they are. It is also the Town Moderators job to appoint the members of the Finance Committee.”

Q: How long do you see yourself as the Acton Town Moderator?

A: “I’m probably going to do it until I’m 95 (laughs). I think I am going to do it for a while longer. I would like to do it for a couple more years, maybe several. I haven’t made up my mind on that. If I thought I couldn’t handle the job – in other words, ‘if it became to confusing for me’ (laughs) or if I couldn’t handle the job with humor I would step down immediately.”

“I don’t think the Town Moderator should be a controversial job and thinking back to two athletes – I would rather go out the way Ted Williams did than the way Willie Mays did. Willie played a couple of years too long and Ted could have stayed and played for another year as far as the Boston fans were cornered. I’d like to go out of this job with people saying, ‘gee, he could have been there a few more years.”