Town reexamines a chaotic meeting's questions

Author: Andrea Glaessner

In the wake of a controversial finale to last week's Middlebury Town Meeting, which saw passage of non-binding resolutions calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the impeachment of President Bush, the Middlebury Select Board started its first bimonthly meeting Monday by trying to understand what had gone wrong. The specific issue at hand: how to handle petitions for new agenda items on Town Meeting warnings.

Middlebury residents Anne Hoover, Professor of Mathematics Mike Olinick and his wife Judy and Middlebury town clerk Anne Webster, all of who participated in the debate over the Iraq war resolution, joined the Select Board members.

The disagreement at the center of the Town Meeting stemmed from a petition by Hoover, a local peace activist behind the Iraq War Vigil held in Middlebury's Triangle Park each Saturday. In January 2003, she marched in a Washington D.C. protest against the war and says the experience "made a fantastic impression on [her]."

After protesting in D.C., Hoover was convinced that Middlebury citizens would benefit from a public forum where they could express themselves and debate national issues that affect a multitude of citizens, like the Iraq War.

"My feeling is that most citizens feel they can't express themselves," says Hoover. "What can we do? We can moan and groan and jump up and down but we can't change things."

To Hoover and other Vermonters across the state, the annual town meeting seemed to offer the perfect venue for citizens to discuss potent national issues in a moderated, civil manner with various members of the community. According to Dan DeWalt, a Selectman in the town of Newfane and a leader in statewide efforts to get towns to pass impeachment resolutions, "The entire town of Newfane and the democratic process were energized as a result of our Town Meeting discussion. People were excited that in Town Meetings they were discussing issues that really affected them, and they respected the people who were speaking on the other side."

Hoping to inspire the town of Middlebury to commence dialogues on the Iraq War at the Town Meeting, Hoover drafted a petition in December asking the Select Board to warn citizens of a non-binding, proposed resolution to bring home the troops from Iraq and to "take good care of them when they get home." After collecting 300 signatures - 50 signatures above the required five percent quota - from local citizens, Hoover presented the petition to the Select Board so that it would be placed on the warning for the annual town meeting and voted on alongside the other articles on the warning by Australian ballot.

In the past, the law for citizens hoping to get a non-binding resolution on the town meeting warning stipulated that five percent of the town's population must first sign a petition. The Select Board was then required to recognize the issue and place it on the warning for debate and discussion at the town meeting.

But when a Supreme Court ruling on Jan. 23 found a new interpretation of the rules for placing items on the warning, a wall of red tape flew up in front of Hoover.

"I had no idea it would be this difficult," she says. "I thought by having 50 signatures over the required 300 I was totally covered."

Following the Supreme Court's ruling on advisory articles and opinion polls, select boards were granted the power to decline petitions for new agenda items that were not germane to town business. The Middlebury Select Board found Hoover's resolution to fall outside the realm of "relevant to town business," and decided to reject Hoover's petition from the warning.

Hoover says she was surprised at the Board's ruling, since her petition contained the required number of signatures. On Jan. 30, the Select Board held a meeting that Hoover and the Olinicks attended in hopes of contesting the Board's rejection of her petition.

According to the minutes recorded at the Jan. 30 meeting, Hoover argued that "The Secretary of State's website notes that historically Vermont Town Meeting was a forum for discussing matters not germane to Town government."

The Board upheld their previous decision to reject Hoover's resolution and to restrict warned items to those that are "germane to town business" given the limited amount of time to work on the required town business on town meeting night.

Following Town Meeting, the Select Board faced criticism from supporters of the petition for the Board's silence when asked to explain why they rejected Hoover's petition. At Monday's meeting, Judy Olinick confronted the Board, asking, "When the people asked [how you made your decision], how could you sit there like stone?"

The lack of clarity resulted in a general confusion among citizens present at the Town Meeting. Confusion led to heated emotions and citizens spent most of the last hour of the meeting debating the procedure of voting on un-warned resolutions rather than discussing the war on Iraq.

This was just one of the questions in regards to the debate over Hoover's resolution that the Board addressed at last Monday's Select Board meeting. The item on the agenda that received the most thorough debate was an item that called for discussion on the "policy concerning questions to be warned for town meeting."

The Board began its meeting with remarks about the overall success of the Town Meeting. But John Tenny, the Select Board Chair was quick to address the biggest pitfall of the gathering and the main reason why Hoover and the Olinicks were present. Tenny began the discussion about the Board's decision to reject Hoover's petition from the town meeting by clarifying that the Board's intent was not to prevent discussion of the resolutions, but to simply ensure that they were discussed in a proper manner.

Tenny reflected on the Board's meeting with Hoover and the Olinicks in January when the three citizens tried to appeal the Board's decision to reject Hoover's resolution.

"We met with you at the second meeting when you folks came forward to contest our exclusion, and it was my expectation that this would be brought up as a resolution [at the meeting] and would be something that the assembled meeting would vote on," said Tenny.

Hoover said she was understanding of the Board's good intentions, but felt it was "unfortunate that so much time was spent on the technicalities of the vote and not on debating the issue." "What we had hoped was that there would be some civil discussion," said Hoover.

Another point of frustration for Olinick was that the Board put other articles, like a non-binding resolution related to hydroelectric power on the town meeting, while expressly rejecting the Iraq resolution. Without a clear explanation, he said the Board's decision seemed arbitrary and "undemocratic."

According to Olinick, "The board can warn anything they want and they tend to warn things that they on their own volition want to vote yes on."

Olinick also explained that the fact that the resolution was rejected from the warning effectively discredited the resolution and only allowed for a brief discussion and a vote of yay or nay. Hoover seconded that emotion, saying, "What we wanted was a vote that counted."

For Judy Olinick, that the resolution would be voted upon by Australian ballot was integral to a successful presentation of the resolution for a number of reasons. Resolutions voted upon by Australian ballot must first be placed on the warning. Warning the resolutions ahead of time would have allowed citizens plenty of time prior to the meeting to prepare remarks for debate and discussion of the resolution. In addition, a separate vote by Australian ballot would have allowed significantly more people than just those present at the end of the meeting the opportunity to vote on the issue.

Select Board member Bill Perkins explained that the
main motivating factor in his vote to reject the resolution from the town meeting was that he felt the resolution failed to show that it was "germane to town business."

In a conversation after the Town Meeting, Perkins expressed his views on the debate about town meeting warnings.

"My personal opinion is that the Town Meeting is not a place to vent," said Perkins. "We try to keep these kinds of issues from taking over a town meeting, if you take this to the extreme, there's no limit to the number of social issues that can be brought up at these meetings. My concern is that they will unduly clutter up the process of getting the town's business done."

"We can't solve the Iraq war, we can't impeach the president, these national issues come up from time to time and the warned items should be limited to those that are germane to town business," said Perkins. "Obviously there is a huge interest in these issues, but they are not issues on which the town has direct control."

Victor Nuovo, another Selectman on the Board, spoke differently about the role of the town meeting, but was still undecided as to whether the Board should warn non-binding resolutions like Hoover's or simply allow those issues to arise under "other business to come before the town".

"I think that the town meeting, apart from settling municipal business, is an opportunity for the town to come, raise and discuss issues, even controversial ones," said Nuovo. "I wish there had been more discussion and that we weren't talking procedurally. On the other hand I think the procedural issue is really fundamental."

The board hopes to establish an ad-hoc committee to examine the policy on warning articles further and come to a consensus that the people agree upon.

DeWalt noted that similar confusion over the legality of warnings and the Select Board's precise role occurred in other towns.