Town voters carry out tradition Middlebury residents attend annual Town Meeting

Author: Christine Fisher

This past Monday night, the town of Middlebury faithfully continued a centuries-old tradition by holding its annual Town Meeting in the Municipal Auditorium, located across the street from the Blue Hen.

According to Vermont law, "a meeting of legal voters of each town shall be held annually on the first Tuesday of March for the election of officers and the transaction of other business."

Such is the legal basis for Town Meeting, a truly Vermont tradition that dates all the way back to 1762, 15 years before the state of Vermont was even created, when the first was held in Bennington.

The practice of Town Meeting, in which citizens vote directly on issues instead of electing officers to do it for them, is unique to Vermont and other New England states. As Professor of Political Science Bert Johnson points out, "different cultural, geographic, and economic reasons" dictate that other states' local governments instead use elected representatives, such as city councils or mayors.

Although only legal voters may actually actively participate in Town Meeting, a handful of Middlebury College students were also in attendance to listen as town residents spoke out about and subsequently voted on the issues that most concern them.

With Governor Jim Douglas '72 acting as moderator, Town Meeting lasted about two and a half hours, as it operated smoothly and efficiently according to a set protocol known as Robert's Rules of Conduct.

The meeting proceeded as townspeople voted on a series of seven articles outlined in the Town Meeting Warning, which, by law, must be publicized at least 30 days before Town Meeting to enable people to peruse the agenda and determine if they agree or disagree with certain proposals.

This year's approved articles include the new town budget of $6,086,783 for the fiscal year 2007, the purchase of new vehicles for police and sanitation departments, a new billing plan for tax collection which allows for payment to be made in three separate installments and the addition of a $.01 surcharge to the Town Land Use Trust Fund to fund future conservation projects.

Town Meeting also provides citizens with the chance to speak out on other matters of concern to them that are not necessarily directly addressed in the Town Meeting Warning.

During the discussion of the budget, for example, one person's inquiry as to why there was a need for so much police overtime - budgeted at $75,100 total, about 1.2 percent of the entire budget - led to a discussion of the town-College relationship.

Police Chief Tom Hanley explained that the increased need for overtime often (though not always, as he judiciously noted that more overtime also stems from a variety of other reasons) results from intoxicated college students who must be accompanied by the arresting officer to Rutland for further processing, thus creating a need for another, off-duty officer to come in and cover for him.

In defense of the student population, however, John Tenney, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, presented a "well, everyone else is doing it" argument, as he noted that this is an issue that cannot exclusively be blamed on the College because drinking is a problem that spans all sectors of the Middlebury town community - high school students and adults also are known to require officer accompaniment for similarly drunken behavior.

Although the first seven articles were decided by voice vote, the last four were still in contention at press time, as they were voted upon the day after Town Meeting, March 7, by Australian (secret) ballot.

The remaining articles are: election of town officers, matters dealing with how the state government uses the State Education Fund, and most prominently, whether or not the townspeople will lend their support to the Cross Street Bridge project, which, if approved, will mean the appropriation of $75,000 of town funds for preliminary engineering design and planning.

Indeed, the question of the bridge is definitely one of the high-priority issues for many citizens, as the addition of a bridge is something that has been discussed and debated for the past 50 years.

Accordingly, talk of the bridge received a good deal of floor time at Town Meeting, as Select Board Vice Chairman Dean George gave a Power-Point presentation that explained why the Bridge Committee chose Cross Street over six other suggested locales. After much discussion among its members, it was finally determined that this location had the potential to best reduce traffic flow over the Battell Bridge.

Such emphasis on the new bridge's prospect to reduce traffic at Town Meeting may have turned some fence-sitters to the pro-bridge side, as anyone who has driven through town when it is busy knows that traffic congestion is a very real issue for the town, an annoyance that citizens face on a daily basis.

However, in addition to increased convenience, which some may cast aside as petty and unnecessary, proponents also note that the new bridge would ensure a quick route for ambulances and other emergency service vehicles, which could otherwise get stuck in the quagmire that is Main Street on a weekday morning or afternoon.

Those who would vote against it take issue most with with the bridge's rather high price tag, which currently stands at an estimated $16 million, although the town hopes to secure grants from the state and federal government to decrease these costs.

In spite of concern regarding decreasing turnout over the years, the meeting seemed very well attended. Even so, of Middlebury's 4,300 registered voters, probably only about 200 to 225 people actually attended Town Meeting, in line with Chairman of the Board of Selectmen John Tenney's estimate in the March 2 edition of The Campus.

Even so, in spite of today's considerably lower turnout, a trend that, again, quite unfortunately, reflects general national declines in political engagement - it is estimated that only about 48 to 50 percent of Americans make their way to the polling booths each year - those involved emphasize that we must remember that the mere continuation of Vermont Town Meeting, which preserves direct democracy is a positive thing in and of itself.

Selectman Peg Martin acknowledged that the Town Meeting is not perfect, but reiterated its key social and political functions: "It is one of the few times when a community has the chance to come together for the sake of community. It would be great if more people participated, but at least there is the possibility for active democracy."