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.
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The Concord Monitor had an amusing take on town meeting years ago that I believe I still have. I postulated that the role at town meeting were handed out before the meeting with residents vying for such roles as "voice of reason" and "town curmedgeon". I applaud your thanking the town selectmen for their service and including those you didn't vote for.
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