Officials: How Can We Improve Town Meeting?

Is there a way to shorten Town Meeting? At its April 10 meeting, the Board of Selectmen discussed a variety of suggestions with all hoping to find an answer to a question that repeats itself annually.

said that several residents approached him after the meeting to voice concerns. He cited one person’s concern, saying, “They go there to vote like you do when you go to a polling place; they don’t necessarily go there to listen to a handful of people preach for hours on end.”

Malloy said that another person told him that he was upset by listening to the same residents speaking and left the meeting, adding that there are five or six people that dominate the discussions and stretch the meeting out for hours.

The 2012 Town Meeting clocked in at 12.5 hours. Malloy noted a list of statistics that indicated a handful of residents filled a large chunk of that time. Among the statistics he noted:

• Of the 12.5 hours, about 7.5 hours were taken up by town officials speaking and 4.5 included comments from residents.
• Five residents spoke longer than four minutes, with Adams Street resident Vincent Borkowski clocking in with the longest comment at 9 minutes and 19 seconds.
• An even 100 speakers addressed Town Meeting; 67 of them were residents.
• Three residents filled 28 percent of the time given for comments.
• Town officials responding to those three residents took up 2 hours and 21 minutes.
• Responses to the top 5 residents who were commenting totaled just over 4 hours, about 35 percent of Town Meeting.

Remedies were bounced around, but none gained immediate traction. Among the ideas offered by Harrington was to stick to a bylaw that states no resident may speak more than two times for each question. He also mentioned that some towns limit debate to thirty minutes.

The addition of a timer for speakers was discussed, limiting speakers to four minutes or opening article remarks to ten minutes. Selectman George Barrette was concerned that such a measure might keep the general public from commenting. “I don’t think it’s fair to Joe Voter. It is difficult enough to get him to come out to town meeting,” he said.

Selectman Denzil Drewry said that some have told him they do not show up because they don’t want to vote publicly. Harrington responded by saying that a secret ballot would be difficult to implement. “It could take 20 to 30 minutes for each vote,” he noted.

Drewry said that a secret ballot might be limited to bigger issues. “We’re making million dollar decisions here, if it does take an extra hour for two articles, I don’t personally have any problem with that.”

Board Chairperson Leigh Emery said she goes back and forth on the idea of cutting time for debate. “I think one of the things that the moderator has to do…is to separate when someone is just repeating philosophical argument once or twice…from making new points and bringing new information to light.”

At the end of the discussion, the board made no decisions. Harrington said he would ponder the many ideas, noting that it is difficult to deny speakers. “You have to realize this is a legislature,” he said.

“If you are a proponent of open Town Meeting, this comes with it,” said Selectman Ian Johnson. “Maybe we’re thinking too much about this.”

“Overall, I think it works well,” said Drewry. “I personally would be very hesitant on changing rules at this point in time.”

Westborough Patch wants to hear you ideas for making Town Meeting more attractive to voters. What changes could be made to make the meeting move more quickly and keep your attention?

Town Moderator Joe Harrington sent this comment to Westborough Patch on April 12:

It's true that "no clear answers" came out of my 4/10 discussion with the Selectmen, but then, the purpose of our discussion was not to make decisions.  It was to open up the listening channel and hear what the Board thought might have gone differently or better, and in that sense, it worked as I hoped.

I had a similar discussion with the Advisory Finance Committee back on April 2, and some interesting thoughts came out of that.  The key points were:

(1)  as with the BoS, there was considerable coolness toward various ways that other towns use to control or limit debate, (2) there was little opposition to the idea that I should be stricter in enforcing General By-law Article 2, Section 12, which reads, in its entirety, "No person shall  speak more than twice upon any question, except to answer an inquiry, or to give information requested, without first obtaining leave of the meeting, and then not until others, who have not spoken on the question, shall have spoken if they desire."   I often ask for "people who have not yet spoken" before recognizing someone who has spoken multiple times, but if none raise their hand, I have not gone through the formality of "obtaining leave of the meeting" for another speech.  That would take the form of a simple majority vote of the meeting, by the way.  (3)  As with the BoS, there was a lot of discussion about getting better information out sooner.  There are many, many public hearings and discussions on the town meeting issues in the weeks and months before a town meeting, but to hear them all, you'd have to go to meetings of the School Committee, Planning Board, Selectmen, Finance Committee and more.  But the specifics upon which the voter will have to act don't come out until relatively late in the process.  (4) One person suggested that we limit microphone service to the main floor, and advise those in the balcony that they should come forward to the standing mikes.

Whether we do that or not, my own observation would be that things would move along much quicker if more people used the standing microphones, and if people who believed that debate was running too long were simply to move to end debate.  That used to be a lot more common than it has been lately.  It should never be done prematurely, nor by the proponent of the motion, but there does come a time when it is in order for an attendee to raise the issue. 

Joe Harrington, Moderator

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