Changes to Structure of Town Meeting Debated

There are changes coming in the make-up of Burlington Town Meeting.

The Town Meeting Reapportionment Committee met Tuesday night to discuss alterations to the Town Meeting precincts made necessary by the growth in population.

Chair Daniel Raske explained that under Massachusetts state law no precinct can contain more than 4,000 residents. According to projections of the 2010 Federal Census, Burlington's population may now be as high as 24,983, though that is an estimate and official Census data are due to arrive later this month. Still, if the population has risen over 24,000 the town will be required to add a seventh precinct.

Under state law, cities and towns must establish new districts by June 2011, meaning Burlington Town Meeting must vote on all changes during the May meeting and the deadline for submitting warrants is March 25. This means the Reapportionment Committee is up against a pretty tight deadline to get the details of the new precinct figured out and put down in a warrant.

There were two main questions discussed at the meeting, which was attended by roughly 20 Town Meeting members who were there to offer their input.

The first question was whether or not to reduce the number of representatives in each district t0 15 from the current 18, for a total of 105 over seven districts rather than 108 members over six districts. This was proposed by the committee and Raske pointed out that even with 108 members, Town Meetings average 87 members in attendance.

Most members in attendance disagreed with this proposal. Town Meeting member Norm Steeves argued strongly against it, stating that Burlington already has fewer members than most communities in the state. Steeves said he would like to see an increase in representation, not a decrease.

"We need more members to have great participation." Steeves said.

An informal vote was taken and after nearly all Town Meeting members at the meeting said they would rather keep 18 members in each precinct, the committee said it would take that under consideration in the next revision. As member Ralph Patuto, who is also chair of the Board of Selectmen, said, the warrant is a working document and nothing is yet set in stone.

If it is ultimately decided that each precinct will have 18 members, the new total of Town Meeting members will be 126.

The second question up for debate was whether to have all Town Meeting members go up for re-election once a new precinct is created. The committee proposed that all members go up for re-election in 2012 with the top five vote getters winning a 3 year term, the second five vote getters winning a 2 year term and the lowest five vote getters per district winning a one year term. The staggering of term lengths for this election was designed to make sure that Town Meeting continued to cycle and that not everyone would be up for re-election at the same time in subsequent years. All terms in the future would again be for three years.

The Town Meeting members at the meeting spoke against this idea as well and the committee once again agreed to re-consider its proposal. Committee members said they would also like to hear from more Town Meeting members for their thoughts.

Even if every member is not required to go up for re-election, some will have to. Committee Member Amy Warfield pointed out in an interview after the meeting that when the new precinct is created, some current members will be within its borders and will have to run again.

The committee will announce a follow-up meeting shortly and we will post the time and location on Burlington Patch for anyone who would like to attend. The committee plans to invite town counsel to the next meeting to answer in greater depth questions posed by the audience.