A Democracy of Neighbors

These last two Saturdays were taken up by the physical and personal practice of democratic governance in what be it’s most fundamental and direct form – the New England town meeting. Last week, my town, Barnstead NH, held it’s annual meeting. The list of warrant articles was much shorter than in past years. The biggest items put before the people were hiring another full time police officer ($70,000 added to the budget), $100,000 for a emergency expenses fund for dealing with natural emergencies, and the budget itself.  Smaller items included the approval of the transferal of deeds for certain properties purchased through a tax sale, requests for the town to assume the maintenance and upgrade of certain private roads, and so on. In the end the police officer was voted down, the emergency fund was amended to $25K and then to $80K, the roads will stay private and the budget was passed at $3 million and some change. Discussion was often lively and direct, but never out of line (although the line is a pretty fluid concept in some town meetings) and Robert’s rules were put to good work keeping things straight and in good order. We started at 9:00 and were done by 1:00 in the afternoon.

Today was the meeting for the School Board. The budget was the single biggest item, with a new teacher contract coming in close to that. Our teachers have worked without a contract for a year,  after the first negotiated contract was turned down at last year’s meeting as being to rich. This year’s contract was more modest and was accepted with a good margin. The budget discussion was also interesting, with an amendment from the floor proposing to strip $100,000 from the superintendents operating budget in order to force him to become a lobbyist to obtain money from the state and federal governments promised us to fund mandates placed upon our local school systems. Although the amendment would likely not have achieved it’s desired ends if passed, it was more of a political statement anyways. The good people of the town got the statement, and having heard the message voted it down soundly before passing the budget as proposed. 13 articles were disposed of by noon.

The school board meeting was noteworthy in that the school budget is easily 3-4 times the town budget, but usually gets a smaller attendance. Not this time. The school board meeting was packed.

I love these meetings for a few reasons. Our nation’s founders fought for, among other things, the right for representation before taxation. What I was privileged to take part in today was almost precisely the converse of having taxes levied by a king over the sea, or even a legislature boxed up in never never land. It was we, the people, discussing what we need to do in order to maintain a civil and effective society and voting to tax ourselves to create what we want. Or, in many cases, voting to NOT tax ourselves. And then we must live with our own decisions, for good or for ill. A theme you will come up against again and again in the essays of Wendell Berry is that local control is the only type of control that is really safe and healthy in the long run. The example that comes to mind is of the shift in ownership that has taken place in recent decades of the great north woods of Maine, NH, VT, and NY. Especially in Maine, the great lumber mills were once owned by local people. They were indeed wealthy and powerful owners of enormous tracts of land, but they lived in the same region as their holdings, and employed people who were essentially their neighbors. Now, most of those holding have been transferred to multinational conglomerates who have no care for the the people, no concern for the land, but know it only as numbers on a spreadsheet that must be made to add up a certain way. Because they do not have to LIVE WITH their decisions, they make decisions without much concern for the human implications of those decisions. This is, perhaps a transferable principle to government as well. It is easy to for someone in Washington DC, or in Concord for that matter, to pass a law mandating this or that. They may or may not fund the mandate, but it doesn't matter because then the mandate becomes the problem of the local people. On the other hand, every decision we make at town meeting carries the very clear awareness that it affects not only me, but my neighbors -- the people I see, and whose home I drive by every day. The people whose kids play with my kids. And when I say this awareness is clear, I mean it. It is a topic that is brought up in every discussion at the town meeting -- "this is going to be tough for the folks whose taxes are going to go up." We hear it over and over again. I suspect that even though we are amateurs, this sort of communal awareness causes us to make, on the whole, pretty reasonable decisions.

There are downsides to a local town based government run along these lines, and probably good reasons why you don’t find it anywhere BUT New England. But I gotta tell you, I really like it. I suspect that if more places ran themselves along these lines, we might be much better off as a nation. 

Town Meeting Observations

A few observations on our recent town meeting:

This was a big meeting. Very important. Literally millions of dollars on the line. The first warrant article took from 9:00 to 1:00 to debate and vote. It was a bond issue for $1.8 million for the construction of a much needed Municipal building. The bond issue was crushingly defeated by a vote of 79 yes to 289 opposed (approximately – I’m sketching from memory here).

It’s not that the buildings aren’t needed. They are. There are three obstacles I see

People are just in NO MOOD to spend money.

We are also facing a bond issue for a new school coming this Saturday at the annual school board meeting. This one is for some $3.3 million.

We have a weird situation with the fire department in this town. It really is too complicated to explain in detail. Suffice it to say that the FD is actually an independent not for profit org that owns the buildings and equipment, although said buildings and equipment are supplied and paid for by the town. Turns out this arrangement is not completely legal. The legal issues involved however, have created a significant level of rancor and distrust among certain factions. Until this situation is rectified and the parties figure out exactly WHO runs the FD, I think the people are not anxious to put money into municipal buildings.

Did I mention that people are in NO MOOD to spend money? A friend of mine put it this way. “I want all of it. But if I vote it all in, I’ll have to work three extra weeks a year to pay for it. I just can’t do that.” He was referring to the fact that we can look at the budget and the bond issues and calculate our property tax increase accordingly. It’s a pretty direct effect. And it makes me aware that when I vote for these things, I am obligating my neighbors as much as myself. On the other hand (particularly when it comes to the school) if I vote against it, I’m may be putting an obstacle in the path of the education for my neighbor’s kids. Since we currently home school, the educational effect is not direct, but the tax bite is. And we may not always home school. It’s a complicated decision.

There were 32 warrant articles. The meeting ran until 5:00 p.m. The Moderator, Bill Gosse, is my hero. Every year I watch him run this meeting with authority, humor and a certain style that is amazing to watch. I have on several occasion complimented him on his skill, and he seems to think that it is nothing much. I know how hard it is to ride heard on a meeting like this as I have had to do it on a smaller scale. The man deserves a medal.

A significant percentage of votes had to go to hand votes because the voice votes were so close. Several times, the hand count registered a big difference that was not apparent at the voice vote. We were admonished by the moderator to speak up. In one specific case, I failed to stand to ask a question of the meeting and regretted that I did not. I think the answer to my question might have turned the vote. It is the habit of a certain group of NO sayers to virtually shout their no vote in a attempt to make their votes seem more than they might actually be. This is a respectable tactic, and I started to learn to use it myself. By gory, if your going to vote, speak up!

The townspeople tend to view every thing recommended by the Selectmen with suspicion, as if these guys are just trying to put something over on the town. The Selectmen, on the other hand, finished the meeting incredibly frustrated by the response of the town to their recommendations. I made a point afterwards of speaking to each Selectmen to thank them for their service. There were several that I definitely did not vote for, but I believe that they have worked very hard for years, and deserved some thanks for it. I believe any differences were largely differences of means, not motives.

There was much more, but I don’t really have time to write everything I observed. Mostly, I just feel privileged to have been part of that process. I’m not sure if our decisions were all for the best. It’s entirely likely that several were not. Nevertheless, there is this feeling that I was part of what our founding fathers fought for – self government, self determination of the community. It was a good day.

Town Meeting Basics

Saturday was Town Meeting day here in Barnstead. For those of you not familiar, a brief primer on the Town Meeting form of self-government is in order. Wikipedia does a pretty good job explaining how the different New England States handle Town Meetings. You will need to page down a bit to get to the NH specifics. Dracutforum has a nice shorter description. It refers specifically to a town in Massachussetts, so it differs from how we do it up here on a few details. Nevertheless, the basics are all in place.

For those of you who are not fortunate enough to participate in direct democracy, and have direct influence on taxation that governs so much of your own economic and social life, I would encourage you to read up. While it certainly has limitations, there is much to recommend this system – not least of all it’s pure entertainment value.

Not that I want you to move here. That would just mean more roads and schools to pay for.