Wakefield Town Meeting #2

My prior letter asked “why would you choose to vote to deny current and future voting rights for you and your children? Who is advocating for less voting rights?” These questions are a lead up to the November Town Meeting articles 28 and 29. These attack voter’s rights around the election requirement for assessors and change rules around the citizen’s referendum petition. Following I summarize the history of the citizen’s referendum in Wakefield, compare Town Meeting to town wide voting, and review the Commonwealth’s requirements.

One: August 1998: A citizen’s petition campaign opposed a Town Meeting vote to acquire conservation land at the head of Lake Quannapowitt known as the “Gertrude Mowry Spaulding Park” for $1,060,000. The town wide ballot affirmed the purchase (2,367-2,225 margin 142).

Two: January 1999: A citizen’s petition campaign opposed a Town Meeting vote to acquire two houses adjacent to Town Hall for $860,000 (5 Common Street and 11 Lafayette Street).

The town wide ballot affirmed the purchase (785-772 by margin 13).

Three: May 2008. A citizen’s petition campaign opposed a Town Meeting vote that funded the entire School Department for $27,473,670. The town wide ballot rejected the budget.

(1,605-2,306 margin 422).

Four: April 2014: A citizen’s petition campaign opposed a Town Meeting vote to give a private facility town owned land valued at $1,000,000, for the purposes of building a parking garage shared by the facility and the town. The town wide ballot rejected the land giveaway (2,527-2,105 margin 422).

Five: June 2018: A citizen’s petition campaign opposed a Town Meeting vote to expand the Public Safety Building (primarily Police portion) for $8,000,000. The town wide ballot rejected the construction effort (1118 to 1042 margin 76).

So, these $38,393,670 of expenditures were affirmed by less than 1,600 Town Meeting voters. But because of the referendum process over ten times as many voters (16,852) had more time to explore and debate these same issues which they rejected three times and agreed twice. When the dust settled, voters choose to purchase 3 parcels of land, retain ownership of one parcel, save $8,000,000 in construction expenses, and keep the school budget (eventually).

Why provide Wakefield voters the opportunity to be able to reconsider Town Meeting votes via the referendum? How do we equate those two voting options? I gathered the lists of all registered voters that attended the latest 2018 Town Meeting, all town employees, and all those who held elected or appointed positions. Of the 226 in attendance, 144 held no town position, 36 were town employees, 28 held appointed positions, and 21 held elected positions. So, for what it’s worth, about 37 percent of Town Meeting participants either held positions in or are employed by Town Hall. I did not calculate the same for town wide voters (ranges from 2,000-11,000), but it clearly is impossible for so high a percentage of the population to be an employee of or hold a position at Town Hall.

How much time and money is spent to hold either vote? The cost for a town wide ballot is about $11,000 and I would estimate that a Town Meeting is a fraction of that.

Let’s not forget to include a much more precious requirement, the voter’s time! This November Town Meeting is expected to take three meetings. So, three, three hour meetings with 200 attendees nets to 1,800 hours. Voting at a town wide ballot takes 30 minutes for each of the 4,000 voters, so that’s 2,000 hours. I was astounded that with this rough estimate I found that required resources for these two distinct efforts are actually quite similar. The resources for these ‘executive meetings’ may seem excessive to some. But the reality is that a business with a similar number of employees and annual budget (Wakefield has 1,000 employees, $95,000,000 budget) would probably spend more in resources for the same. Also, nearly all voters can adjust their schedule to vote in a town wide ballot. In contrast, it is simply prohibitive for many voters to attend all the sessions of Town Meeting. Clearly, those who can attend have different demographics.

Let’s compare our petition signature requirements to what Massachusetts Constitution Article 48 defines for statewide petitions. For the equivalent ‘veto referendum’ the signature requirement is 1.5 percent of the vote at the last Governor’s race. The votes cast in the 2014 Governor’s race were 2,158,326 statewide with 10,682 cast in Wakefield. Statewide you need to collect 33,297 signatures. There is no requirement on how many be from any specific location, but if it were done proportionally, only 161 would be required in Wakefield! Knowing this, who is campaigning at the November Town Meeting to increase the current requirement of 200 certified signatures to 933 – that’s a 376 percent increase in Wakefield. The same folks behind this are also campaigning to reduce the time available to collect signatures by as much as 32.8 percent. Compare that to the time to collect state signatures which is “not later than ninety days after the law which is the subject of the petition has become law “.

These five referendums are in the past. You’re not being asked in November to vote on the past. Can any of us forecast what issue a referendum may reconsider in the future? What will happen if a group or Town Hall “gathers up the faithful and stacks Town Meeting”? Who wants to be able to “stack town meeting” and disrespect the much larger voting community?

In ten years perhaps 500 articles have been brought before Town Meeting, of those only five were reconsidered at a referendum. If this rarely used check and balance becomes unachievable, we all lose and get to say goodbye to the possibility that citizens may reconsider articles in the future. What may future groups or Town Hall officials push through sparsely attended Town Meetings? Is that what our fore-fathers planned for Wakefield and America?

In a future letter I plan to present the few last details. I do hope those at a well-attended Town Meeting understand where we’ve been, how we got here, plan wisely for the future, and know who’s asking you to vote to deny your voting rights.

Sincerely,Robert Mitchell