Town Meeting 2006

Last Saturday WS and I went to the Deering Town meeting (as we do every year). The usual cast of characters was there but the usual weather wasn't. This is the first time that I can remember that we haven't gotten snow on town meeting day. Last Saturday's sunny weather shocked the hell out of me!

We had a new participant in the town meeting - one of my customer's and his wife showed up. They have lived in town for over 10 years. I know they make it to the polls on Tuesday to vote (for the school budget, positions up for re-election etc.), but they have never been to a town meeting before (as far as I know).

They are usually the nicest people - they came to the meeting with an attitude. They both had frowns on their faces and stared straight at the Selectmen the whole time. They never cracked a smile. He made a sarcastic suggestion during discussion of one of the warrant articles. Not a good first introduction to town meeting.

Now I understand that he just got laid off. She was laid off from work a couple of years ago, but chose to stay out of the job sector. They have a really nice home, lots of acreage, an in-ground swimming pool etc. Additionally, they are unhappy with their re-evaluation from a couple of years ago. So naturally, they want to keep their taxes down. However, coming to town meeting to stare at selectmen (who, by the way have held the growth of expenditures in proposed budgets to just a couple of percentage points) and frown is not the way to endear yourself to the rest of the people participating in the meeting.

You have to go to town meeting with a sense of humor - there are always a couple of jokes that help break up the tension. Seriously, the couple in question never changed the look on their faces, even when the whole room was laughing over something that was said!

People may speak passionately on a subject (either for or against), but this guy was just sarcastic. Part of the problem, I believe is that he hasn't been to a town meeting, so doesn't know how the budgeting and spending process works. A little background is needed to understand, so here goes a lot of boring stuff:

1. We have to approve expenditures for the main town budget (salaries, supplies, fixed costs, loan repayments, police dept., fire dept. etc.). The expenditures are slated to specifica areas in the budget, but they can be moved around if needed, as long as the total dollar amount is not surpassed.
2. IF the total dollar amount is surpassed (due to uncontrollable circumstances), the selectmen can authorize the additional expenditures but must get ratification at the next town meeting. This is true even if monies outside the general budget went into the general fund and covered the expenditures (no loans were taken out to cover the costs).
3. Warrant articles are for special expenditures such as new cruisers, road work (above and beyond the road crews regular budget), putting money into trust funds for later use etc. These articles can, under no circumstances be over-spent. Nor can the monies appropriated be moved between articles. Any monies left over go into the general fund.
4. Money must be appropriated in order to spend it. Passing a warrant article to get a new cruiser means nothing. The warrant article must contain money to spend on the cruiser - even if we know we are getting a donation to pay for the cruiser (its a bit complicated - we spend the money appropriated for the cruiser and the donation actually goes back into the genral budget).
5. Articles that are self-supporting must still have monies appropriated for them. Suppose we decide we need a dog catcher and he will be paid only out of fines that are paid by the owner - we still have to appropriate money to pay his salary even though it doesn't affect our tax rate one bit.

Ok, I think you have enough background info for this next part to make sense. The gentleman in question was there when we voted to allow the selectmen to spend an additional $9,000 last year. Rising fuel and insurance costs were the culprits. we passed the article and then went on to the town budget. This is the first time in my memory that we have had to approve and over-ependiture. No comments were offered by the gentleman on the 1.38 million dollar budget.

Then we got to the warrant articles. He did't speak out on any of the large items (road work, new fire pumper, new breathing apparatus for the fire department, monies to trust funds). No, he got his dander up about a $10,000 article, for rewriting and updating the zoning ordinances, and wanted to reduce it to $5,000. At first he was reasonable when he asked how the dollar figure had been reached. A selectman responded that we had gotten an estimate as well as talked to other towns about their experiences.

The gentleman said that maybe we should try to do it for $5,000. The selectman responded that since other towns, of approximately the same size, had gone thru the process recently and spent close to that amount, the estimate seemed reasonable.

Then in a sarcastic tone, the gentleman said something to the affect, "well, if it costs that much, you guys just spend it, but I think we should only approve $5,000." When the selectman said that the project couldn't be completed if they ran out of money, he stormed, "from what I've seen, you guys can overspend anyway. We approved an over-expenditure earlier, so that must be the way it works."

The selectman had to then explain why they could overspend on the general budget (and how it works), but not on warrant articles.

On later warrants articles (for the new town pumper and breathing apparatus for the fire department) we adjusted the amounts up because rising interest rates would raise the total cost over the two year lease/purchase agreements. For the rest of the meeting, the gentleman and his wife retained their stony-faced attitudes and stares.

This did not win them any friends, or sympathy from those of us that go year after year, not just on a year where the going is a little tough.

So, the moral to the story is: if you go to town meetings, be informed on how things work. If you don't know, then questions are certainly appropriate, but keep a sense of humor, don't get sarcastic or hostile, and keep in mind that we all are trying to get thru the 5 hour ordeal too.

Comments

[Cop Car]

Well said, Bogie. Usually, it behooves us to attend at least a couple of meetings, before opening our mouths or closing our minds, in order to understand what's really happening. Unfortunately, too many of us ignore the process until we have a personal gripe and then barge in to insinuate ourselves into the process. This event probably gave you a whole 'nuther view of your clients.

[bod]

oh dear how sad.

[buffy]

We don't use the Town Meeting system here in Illinois. My town has roughly 150,000 inhabitants, and our meeting might have to have translators present because a large number of the residents don't have a good command of English. We have our share of people like the two you've described. I imagine they can really bog down a meeting. Do even the largest towns in New Hampshire have town meetings? I can't imagine where we would hold our meetings.

[bogie]

Some towns have adopted SB2, which is where they vote for everything on the ballot (as we do for the school budget). Larger towns - Concord, manchester and Nashua - hold town meetings, but the mayer and aldermen set the budget.

You wouldn't actually need a very big space for a town meeting for a town your size; the larger the town, the smaller the percentage of people attend. For instance, we have roughly twice as many people attend our town meeting (70-80) as Concord does (around 30). We, at 2,000 people are much smaller than Concord (42,000) but have a much larger percentage of attendance!