BRATTLEBORO->Kate O’Connor: ‘There’s a lot that is confusing’
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Randolph T. Holhut, moderator: So why are we here? For those three questions on the ballot on March 3, articles that could transform the system of government in Brattleboro — the system that Brattleboro has used for 65 years — the Representative Town Meeting (RTM). [See sidebar for the text of the three articles as they will appear on voters’ ballots.]
What will these changes accomplish? And why might they be needed? So tonight we have this panel. They’ll talk about these changes.
We’ll start with the head of the charter commission, Kate O’Connor, who will talk about the charter process, which is at the heart of these changes.
Kate O’Connor, Charter Revision Commission: I’m hoping that what I’m going to say will make some sense, because there’s a lot that is confusing. I’m happy to answer any questions.
I want to try to put some process around why we’re having this vote on March 3. The three questions on the ballot go to whether or not we’re going to change our form of government. Two of those questions could, if approved, change our charter.
So, you ask: What is our charter?
Our charter outlines how our government in Brattleboro functions. Very simply, it outlines the role of the Selectboard and the role of the people.
There are a number of ways to change the charter. I’m going to talk about two of them: the Charter Revision Commission process, and citizen petition.
Every 15 years, the Selectboard has to appoint a Charter Revision Commission to look at the charter and recommend any changes. I was appointed, along with five other Brattleboro residents. We started meeting in 2023, and we met and we met, and we still haven’t finished our work. You folks will see [recommendations] a little bit later —we don’t want to confuse everybody.
We have talked about what to do about Representative Town Meeting. For literally 2½ years, the topic had come up at all of our meetings.
In July of 2025, a citizen petition started circulating to change Representative Town Meeting form of government to an Australian ballot form of government. Shortly after that, [another] citizen petition came forward, one that would change Representative Town Meeting to an open Town Meeting form of government.
Petitions need signatures of 5% of registered voters in the town to put a question on the ballot for a townwide vote. Once that happens, the Selectboard is required to [do so]. That’s what’s happening in March.
At that point, the Charter Revision Commission said, “Well, let’s wait. We’ll step back. We’ll hold off continuing our work until we figure out what’s going to happen in March.” So the reason that we’re having this vote in March is because these two citizen-driven petitions came forward.
Regardless of what happens in March, how the vote goes, changing the Charter is a significant thing to do, and the process doesn’t end on March 3 with our vote. This is where it gets really fun for all of us.
We are a Dillon’s Rule state, which means municipalities can only [claim] powers that the state allows. So if the open Town Meeting petition passes and/or the Australian ballot petition passes, it has to go to the Legislature in the form of a bill for approval, and then it has to go to the governor for signature.
So whatever we’re doing is bigger than than us, in a sense, because other people out there are going to be making the ultimate decision. If it’s going to go to the Legislature, that is going to be its own sort of quagmire of figuring out what happens next.
The Legislature doesn’t have to approve what we give them. They can say no, they can change it, they can do whatever they want, and when it gets to the governor, he can veto it.
So I just want everybody here to know we’re going to do something in in March, and if there’s an affirmative vote, or one or both of those charter amendment votes, the process is just beginning. So I just want you to know that the charter change is a significant thing.
There are three questions. The first one is: Shall the town of Brattleboro discontinue the Representative Town Meeting form of government? That is not a charter change, so that does not have to go to the Legislature. The Selectboard put that question on the ballot. Per state statute, if we want to stop using our Representative Town Meeting form of government, the municipality has to vote on it.
This first question is not a charter change, which means if on March 3, we as a community vote to stop using Representative Town Meeting form of government, there will be no Representative Town Meeting in 2026, and per state statute, we will automatically default to an open Town Meeting.
So in the event that Representative Town Meeting is continued, the town has got it on the schedule just like normal. But if it’s discontinued, the town is planning for an open Town Meeting in April.
The two other questions, if passed, will have to go to the Legislature. By the time we have our vote, and it gets up there, it has to be put in bill form, it has to go through a House committee, it has to go through the [full] Vermont house, it has to go to a Senate committee, it has to go through the Senate, and then it has to be signed off by the governor.
There’s absolutely no way that’s going to happen by March of 2026. So we’re talking 2027 before an actual resolution maybe would come about.
Andy Davis: ‘RTM is a forum for responding to these pressures’
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Holhut: Andy Davis has been doing the Representative Town Meetings for many years — not quite as much time as he has been playing music. He will speak to the ... joys? of Town Meeting.
Andy Davis, RTM member (D9): There’s about 40 people here tonight. So imagine more than three times as many people as are here right now, concerned citizens. That’s what RTM is like. And when I look out at this crowd, I see people of many different opinions, many different backgrounds, many of whom I’ve served on RTM with. And heard at different venues around town.
And that’s what makes RTM representative of the community. It’s not because one representative goes out and finds out how everybody feels in their district and then puts it into an algorithm and goes and votes accordingly. It’s that the total body — about 140 reps who were elected by Australian ballot, and the 10 or so ex officio members, which are people like the moderator and the town treasurer and the Selectboard, are representative of our community. That’s why I believe it’s called the Representative Town Meeting.
I’m here to speak for this institution, so I’m not going to spend time on the other options. But there is some overlap between RTM and open Town Meeting, with many [common] advantages.
Australian ballot is a very different direction to go in. We already have Australian secret ballot in Brattleboro. We use it to elect our Selectboard, other town officers, and our representatives to Town Meeting.
Representative Town Meeting does not stand alone. It’s part of a system of checks and balances. RTM serves as a check on the Selectboard. The people serve as a check through the various referendums that are allowed (including a very liberal referendum right here, according to our town charter), and the people can check RTM and the Selectboard through referendums.
RTM is pretty good sized. It’s actually larger than the United States Senate and the Vermont Senate combined.
Somebody online said that in all the years they’ve lived in Brattleboro, no RTM representative has called them up to get their opinion before voting. And I said to them, “Well, I had spent years since [U.S. Sen.] Bernie [Sanders] called me, or [U.S. Rep.] Becca [Balint], or anybody, but our numbers as representatives are published, our contact information can be accessed in less than three minutes by anybody in town, and when people call, I consider that a powerful moment in my life, and I sit down and talk to them.
Members are committed to serving the town over a three-year term.
Our Representative Town Meeting has the power to approve, reject, or amend articles that are put before it on the [floor], within the bounds of Brattleboro’s charter and Vermont state law.
RTM interrogates the town administration, goes through the budget, and asks for particular information about things that are on the warning.
And RTM is also subject to checks and balances. The same size group of people meet, whether there is acute controversy in town or the appearance of no controversy in town. It’s a steady, committed group of people. It revolves over the years as people come in and out, but it’s a consistent, fair, and face-to-face, deliberative process.
RTM draws upon accumulated knowledge and memory. Some of the issues we’ve tackled have gone on for several years. Solid waste took a lot of our time.
I could mention other things we’ve tackled: police facilities; the 1% Local-Option Sales Tax, a multi-year conversation; public safety and the nature of policing in Brattleboro; Fire Department facilities.
These [topics] sometimes take more than one year of discussing and compromising and learning. Somebody once said a couple times in the hearings something like: Oh, at RTM, the loudest voices rule the day. But that’s not really true, because RTM uses the same legislative rules as other parliamentary bodies in our country: Robert’s Rules of Order.
RTM has seen somebody who talks on every issue. Suddenly, their power evaporates. The people who speak concisely, with good questions and some research behind them, with an openness to listen to other people? Usually those are the people who are listened to, and they lead the way toward compromise.
RTM members, to sum up, are willing to serve, to prepare, to listen, to learn and compromise. They’re also human beings. People do miss meetings for family crises, for illness, for weather. But RTM does represent the people of Brattleboro, our shared interests, and our varied viewpoints. The membership is equally distributed across our three legislative districts, and that helps ensure that there are varied points of view.
We are the only town in Vermont with the Representative Town Meeting, and that kind of goes along with our motto, “The One and Only Brattleboro.”
One of the things that’s not brought up a lot at these hearings is that some people express that RTM is somehow an engine for the rise of taxes in this town.
RTM did not create the forces that are driving our tax increases. But I will say that RTM is a forum for responding to these pressures, and I think the pressures over the next few years are going to increase, not decrease, and simply voting a number up or down is going to be a less-valuable process than 150 people talking about the challenges we face, listening, compromising, and proposing the way forward.
Tom Franks: ‘I think we deserve better’
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Holhut: And that’s a very good segue to Tom Franks’ time at the mic, since he’s one of the people who helped get this, these questions onto the ballot.
Tom Franks, RTM member (D9): Thank you, Kate, for that great explanation. It was really necessary, and that has not been brought out a lot.
“One person, one vote” says it all. I believe that every voter in town should have the opportunity to vote on the town budget and other important issues.
I have three points I’m going to start with:
1. The Town Meeting format — representative or open — takes the vote away from a portion of the town’s registered voters.
2. Across the state, participation in towns with Australian ballots on average is over twice as high as it is for towns using Town Meeting.
3. Brattleboro is much worse off by economic measures than comparable towns.
Here’s some detail on each of these.
Town Meeting format excludes voters. In the case of RTM, it excludes 98% of the voters on the checklist.
Both Town Meeting types exclude those voters who cannot, for a host of reasons, commit to attending a meeting at a certain place and time for an unspecified duration.
Some of the voters who might be unable to participate in an open Town Meeting are people with disabilities, people in hospitals and residential facilities, people for whom English is not their primary language, people who spend March and April in other places but who primarily live here, people who work multiple jobs, people who work at night and would be too exhausted to [attend] a long daytime meeting, people who have young children and cannot arrange child care, people who care for other household members and cannot arrange for their care, business owners and professionals who work with many different people in town and are concerned about the loss of business if they take a public position on local matters, and people who work for government and may feel they are excluded due to the Hatch Act [which prohibits political activity under certain circumstances from certain federal employees while on duty].
Point number two, some more information: Across Vermont, the use of Australian ballot increases as town size increases. For towns comparable to Brattleboro, both in terms of level of service and [population] size, only Burlington does not use Australian ballot for its budget. Their City Council approves the budget.
For towns of comparable size, only Brattleboro and Middlebury use a Town Meeting. Brattleboro and Middlebury are very different towns on a host of economic issues.
Just to give you a sense of the turnout: Australian ballot, average turnout, regardless of town size, break it into five segments, it exceeds 20%. The average turnout for floor votes or Town Meeting participation, it’s pretty good below 750 voters (19%). But as you go up in town size, it drops to 8%, 6%, 4%.
When you get to towns over 5,000 — there’s only one of them, actually, and that’s Middlebury — floor turnout is 1%.
In the last three years, 31 towns have adopted Australian ballot.
Three: talking about comparable towns and why we’re worse off. Brattleboro has paid fire and police departments. I chose towns that are roughly our size, are in the same size category, and have those features, because they are pretty significant cost drivers.
Based on the data available when I started my research, I found that Brattleboro had the lowest median income, the highest poverty rate, the second-highest portion of household spending over 30%, households spending over 50% of their income on housing, and the fourth-highest town tax rate and average municipal tax rate per homestead, despite a house value 20% lower than average in our comparables.
What we are doing is not working for us in economic terms. If all of the other comparable towns, with the exception of Burlington (and we don’t necessarily want to follow their example) are using Australian ballot for their budget, maybe that’s something we should seriously consider.
One of the points has been made repeatedly is that Representative Town Meeting will provide more information to the Selectboard if a budget is rejected.
Last year, we had multiple votes of what the budget should be. Just a number, not what to cut. In the end, after many hours of discussion, all we sent back to the Selectboard was No. We didn’t give them any information at all.
And finally, in terms of everything I’ve told you tonight, you can look it up. You can find it.
There are lots of reasons you can get deprived of your vote. With the Australian ballot and absentee ballots and mail-in ballots, it’s almost impossible. You have to choose not to vote. Nothing can stop you. And that’s really important to me.
Finally, on the on the topic of the value of deliberation, a review of multiple academic and scholarly studies of New England Town Meetings shows that the authorities are unanimous in agreeing to the rosy view of Town Meeting as the perfect democracy is a romantic myth.
Town Meetings and RTM are too large for effective deliberation. There’s a whole bunch of peer-reviewed articles about deliberative body size. Five to nine, you can do it alone; up to 25, you need a little facilitation. You get any bigger, and you need to have breakouts — multi-day, multi-session work to really get to a good decision where everybody gets to be heard, where everybody has a chance to contribute their intelligence, their perspective, their insight.
And finally, they did find the Town Meetings are dominated by the culture of the attendees with loudest voices. They found that. It’s in the research.
Open Town Meeting and Representative Town Meeting have always been dominated by privileged, powerful, and entitled citizens. If you can run for that office, if you know you can make it, if you know you have the ability to speak in public at length and be argumentative, if you can take that on, if you’re comfortable with it? Hey, you can run and you can vote.
If you’re not willing to do all that, or able to do all that, you’re deprived of a vote, even with an open Town Meeting format.
I think we deserve better. We deserve one person, one vote, with all votes and all voices equal with Australian secret ballot.
David Gartenstein: Why should people not all be allowed to attend Town Meeting if they’re interested?
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Holhut: And then there’s the person who will have to deal with whatever you, the voters, decide.
David Gartenstein, town moderator: This is a really important topic for us to be discussing — how our government is going to function. And I want to encourage everybody who’s got a view about this not just to attend and not just to think about it, but also to consider sharing your views with others, to write letters to the paper in the hopes that everybody’s views will be articulated and as widely available as possible.
So I’m Town Moderator. I was on the Selectboard from 2011 to 2017. I’ve served in a series of other positions. I was on the Charter Revision Commission for the first couple of years and there when we started talking about potential changes to how the town government would function.
I’ve always been in favor of open Town Meeting. I first ran for Town Meeting representative in, like, 1985 or 1986, and I wasn’t elected that first time.
And I have never, ever understood in the 40 years since why it is that people who live in Brattleboro should not all be allowed to attend Town Meeting if they’re interested in being involved.
That right there is the core of the reason why I’m in favor of open Town Meeting, just like all the other towns in Vermont, where [voters who live in] town come and [participate]. They’re qualified because the Town Clerk makes sure that they live there, and then they get to participate.
Ultimately, that is something that a number of people have embraced, and it’s now on the ballot as an alternative to Australian ballot.
After the [second municipal] public hearing [on the ballot questions] I had a conversation with somebody about public engagement in town government. I was asked if I thought the involvement that people are having now in this discussion might lead to an increase in citizen engagement in town government. It made me think about this question that we’re going to be voting on on March 3 differently.
Probably at any given time, we have 50 or 100 people who participate in Brattleboro town government. You’ve got five Selectboard members who are involved pretty much every day, certainly a couple, three, four days a week, in dealing with the business of the town. You’ve got a whole series of other people who volunteer to engage in various [boards and committees]: Planning Commission, Charter Revision Commission, Zoning Board, Development Review Board, Parks and Rec Board. I would guess it’s between 50 and 100 people who participate and help to run the government, and 150 people who are employed by the town.
The difference for me between Australian ballot and Town Meeting really goes to the question of the engagement level in town government.
You get a group of people who spend a significant amount of time to prepare, to review, to really understand the business of town government. The level of discussion at Town Meeting is very detailed. It requires people to take the time to study and understand, at a fine level, how the government is functioning.
I’ve moderated this meeting now [since 2022]. Everybody who wants to speak gets a chance. People change their minds. People engage with one another respectfully.
People deliberate as a group. In fact, the deliberative process is how we commit some of the most important decisions in our community.
I was a prosecutor for 21 years. Guilt or innocence is decided through a deliberative process with a jury of 12. [A similar process takes place at Town Meeting], which is also how those really important decisions are made, with people starting with views on what they heard and saw, thinking about what their neighbors have to say, and then together, deliberating and making a decision.
It is a smaller group of people than would be voting at Australian ballot. You’re going to have 150 to 200 people who are deeply involved. Some of them will overlap with the people who are already involved in town government. But you’ve got people deeply involved and working on these issues.
I’m not going to say that there’s no issue to be discussed, right? Because there’s a debate to be had about Australian ballot versus Town Meeting, particularly in a town this size.
But what you get with Australian ballot is the opportunity to vote up or down on the budget number by paper ballot. And you’re not going to have the same level of depth, the same level of commitment and involvement and discussion about those core issues.
So you’ve got much more surface-level engagement by many more people. And that’s a fundamental question that has to be decided here. Do you want a narrower group of people who are way more involved and spending way more time to understand, or are we going to have participation from a way broader swath of people?
Let’s not forget: Usually at March elections, you get 1,800 to 2,000 people voting. That means that 80% of the people in town are not voting at March elections and are self-excluded from the process. They don’t participate.
So you’re going to have about 20% of the population with a much more surface-level engagement, but then, who would attend Town Meeting? That is the fundamental question that has to be decided here.
I hope everybody will think about those questions and vote what you think is best. Thank you.
Questions, answers, and comments
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Craig Miskovich, RTM member (D7): I rise to argue against Andy Davis and David Gartenstein at my significant peril, but I will do my best— and thank you both for the incredible work that you do.
I think that people who can barely get themselves to the Legion to vote should be allowed to participate in our democracy, too. I don’t think we should have an elite group that gets to make those decisions, even though they are better read and more informed.
My concern about Representative Town Meeting — and Andy, I’ll have you know, kind-hearted people can debate this question — is that I don’t think it is representative.
Eighty-five percent of the elections in representative town meeting are uncontested. Representative Town Meeting members are volunteers, and that’s fine, but we don’t leave our democracy to volunteers, and we’re the only town in the state of Vermont that doesn’t have a direct participation in Town Meeting, either through Australian ballot or through an open Town Meeting.
And if Representative Town Meeting was the Town Meeting that David Gartenstein entered into 40 years ago when David Gartenstein didn’t get elected, I would be more supportive of Representative Town Meeting. I have less quibble with the open Town Meeting.
What I would recommend is that to maximize the number of people who vote, have an Australian ballot, and give everybody the opportunity for that civic discussion. Like many communities, have a public forum [before the vote]. Thank you.
Millicent Cooley, RTM member (D9): I’m on the RTM Finance Committee.
We Finance Committee members are appointed every year at RTM. Our role is to analyze, provide an independent point of view, and help voters in the public to understand what’s going on with the budget.
The budget’s now up to $27 million, the budget documents are really complex, and we spend many hours and weeks preparing. So what would happen if RTM is rescinded? How is this going to function?
O’Connor: The Charter Revision Commission actually looked at this question. The Finance Committee is in the town charter as a Representative Town Meeting committee. Speaking right now as the charter revision commission chair, the commission’s recommendation — in our draft charter that you folks will see, hopefully later this year — is that the Finance Committee actually be elected by the people of the town, just as the Selectboard is, because the committee began as a RTM committee to advise the people of this community. That’s the spirit in which it was formed decades ago in the first place.
Obviously, there are town committees that are appointed by the Selectboard. So there is also that option: the Selectboard could say, “Hey, no, we want to appoint the Finance Committee.”
But again, that’s a hypothetical, because that will have to be worked out.
Audience question via livestream: If the open Town Meeting question passes, would the meeting always be scheduled on Town Meeting Day [the first Tuesday in March], or could there be some flexibility in the schedule, making it on a day where more people might find [themselves] available?
O’Connor: Whether it’s an open Town Meeting or a Representative Town Meeting, it can be scheduled when we want to, so would not have to be on that Tuesday. So it could [for instance] be scheduled on a Saturday. So no one has to worry about that.
And for full transparency, the Charter Revision Commission’s version of the charter at the current time has open Town Meeting. That’s a conversation we’ve had with the town attorney.
Spoon Agave, RTM member (D8): There were so many questions we need about 12 forums like this.
I have studied democracy all my life. To say that one person, one vote is democracy is like saying that a motor is a car. One person, one vote is one of a list of necessary elements for a democracy.
An informed voter is another requirement.
Controlling the agenda is another requirement. If the people cannot talk about what they want to talk about, they have no control, they have no power.
Another aspect is inclusiveness — that as many people as possible in a society should vote. We do exclude some people, even now; we used to exclude a lot more.
One question, however. Mr. Franks spends some time talking about the poor economy of this town and says that for that reason, we need to change the form of our government, implying that if we change the form of our government, our economy will improve. Mr. Franks, would you explain why?
Franks: I believe I said that other towns are doing it. They look better. Shouldn’t we try it? There is no guarantee our economy will improve.
But I was interviewed today by somebody who was asking: “So if we have Australian ballot and the budget keeps going up, will you be okay with that?” My answer was: “Of course.” If all the people of the town vote for it, that’s what we’ve decided to do. That’s how we’ve decided to invest our resources.
So I did not imply or state even that the economy will get better. I listed facts, and I asked a question.
Davis: Just a quick response to Spoon Agave. I just wanted to highlight one thing that you said is that democracy is a multifaceted machinery. I think the other night I said that all democracies should have a sign on them that says “Under Construction.” Democracy is a complicated, interactive way of self government.
The interaction between Town Meeting and the Selectboard is something I’ve highlighted before.
The Selectboard is our primary legislative body by state law. When the Selectboard presents a budget, they work with the town management and they put that forward. And all of those hearings are broadcast, they’re all open meetings, all of the votes are recorded, there is complete transparency in that process.
And at the same time, we vote for all five of our members of the Selectboard — a good number for group decision-making — by Australian ballot.
So to say that having Town Meeting denies the role of Australian ballot in our town is not true. We have both. And they work together.
The Finance Committee is another view of the financial situation in town, and it would definitely need to be rethought to have that same dynamic relationship with the Selectboard.
Chris Chapman, RTM member (D9): I’m a native of Brattleboro, but I’ve lived here consistently only since 1991, when I moved back here with my family. I have been a town meeting rep for — like Tom and like Andy — years. I can’t count how many years.
I want to provide some wider context to the issues in front of us, and that is the issue of low voter turnout. I think there’s an assumption being made that if we change, there actually will be more people turning out to engage in the debates and the votes.
I am not confident that that argument or that assertion is valid.
Compared to all the state and federal elections we go through, [turnout] for the town vote that we have in March is really poor. It’s something that makes the system that we have a target for criticism. In fact, we have a voter engine, like a gasoline engine, that is fueled inadequately with the octane that it needs to move forward.
Will the voter participation improve with Australian ballot or in open Town Meeting? Won’t there be, if I’m correct in my suspicion that we won’t have good turnout, that we will basically have a similar outcome created by the better informed people who actually turn out to vote? Will we take the entire community’s best interests to heart in every vote?
Or are we going to be smothered by [participants] who will come in with one objective on one matter? [You’ll recall the] last Special Representative Town Meeting about security downtown.
Further, this is not a great time in our country. We are a divided society that elected a president with, really, an inadequate turnout of voters, causing the election of someone who many of us think is a madman. If you think about it, there’s just not enough people participating.
So I want to just point out to these people whom I respect, one and all, and to you who turned out tonight — a very small minority of our town — that I think our energy really needs to be spent on getting the voters out, making more room in the newspapers for the commentary that’s needed, because newspapers are an extremely important source of democratic activity.
And so with that said, I want to thank you for listening as courteously as you have and worry with me about this particular issue, because it can drastically affect how we live.
Franks: I have very much tried to tell you things that are either data based or very hard to refute. I mean, if you’ve got a broken leg and you’re in the hospital, you’re not going to get to a meeting.
I am going to take Chris’s comments as the opportunity to speculate, which I try not to do in public, but for this case, I shall.
In response to your question, I would speculate that part of the issue with our low turnout is that for most voters, there’s no reason to [participate]. RTM and the Selectboard make the decisions. The only decision voters get to make right now in Brattleboro is to vote for those folks.
So maybe if we have Australian ballot and people think their vote matters — as opposed to their being excluded from voting — our turnout will go up. Purely speculative. Thank you.
Timothy Belknap, RTM member (D9): This vote comes down to a single unavoidable question: Do we believe in broad participation, or do we believe in gatekeeping?
Open Town Meeting and Representative Town meeting were designed for a different time. Today, they exclude more residents than they empower. Long meetings, public pressure, and limited access don’t strengthen democracy, they restrict it.
We’re told that some people are more informed and therefore better suited to decide for everyone else. And I’m thinking about my neighbor at home, who actually watches all of these Selectboard meetings, and she does not have a vote.
So we hear warnings about social media misinformation paired with the clear implication that RTM members are thoughtful and rational, while the broader public is not. That’s elitism, plain and simple.
Brattleboro residents are capable, informed, and fully able to decide what is best for their own lives and their own community. Democracy does not improve by shrinking who gets to vote.
We’re also told that RTM or OTM produces better deliberation, but RTM cannot amend the budget, that it’s an up or down vote. In 2025, after hours of debate, the only guidance produced was to reduce the budget. That’s not deliberation, it’s just pure noise.
We’re told that RTM represents the community, but in May 2025, absences and abstentions meant nearly 25% of the population did not get a voice [by representation]. Those members have valid reasons for being absent or choosing not to vote publicly, and those reasons were respected.
The question is obvious: Why is that same flexibility and privacy denied to everyone else, all of the voters in town?
The Australian ballot solves this — cleanly, fairly, and completely. It’s private, it’s accessible, it’s familiar. It allows people to vote without intimidation, without sacrificing an entire day, and without performing democracy in public.
Seniors, people with disabilities, working parents, hourly workers and non-English-as-first-language speakers all gain an equal voice.
When residents understood this was simply a normal vote, one they could actually participate in, they signed our petition eagerly.
Gartenstein: I’d like to respond to some of the criticisms of the Town Meeting forms of government that I’ve heard.
It is said that town meeting is controlled by the privileged, the powerful, the entitled, and the elite. Town Meeting is constituted of you and me and other people in the town. Anybody in the town can put in to run for Town Meeting [representative]. There are open slots; people can attend. Open Town Meeting, similarly, would be populated by people who live in the town.
I’m not aware of anything elitist or power driven or privilege driven or entitled about people who choose to take the time to delve deeply into the town’s business, because that’s what people do when they participate in Town Meeting. That’s not elitist, that’s not privilege, that’s not the powerful having more of a voice.
There’s also these concerns about Town Meeting being financially irresponsible and not representative. In the absence of town meeting, you’ll have an Australian ballot article — [something like] “Shall the town expend $27,878,000 to pay for services that are being provided?” — without any explanation. There may be an informational meeting, but you’re not going to have 1,500 people or 1,800 people take the time to go.
That 1,500 or 1,800 people is the number who often vote at the March elections.
I’d also note that it’s the Selectboard that develops our budgets, and there’s been concern expressed about the level of human services funding that’s been approved by Town Meeting over the last years. The level of human services funding pales in comparison to the budget increases that the Selectboard has included year in and year out in our budgets. And last year, the Representative Town Meeting rejected that budget increase as being too significant.
Nell Mayo, RTM member (D8): I ran over here from working at the HatchSpace. I was listening online, and I got a little agitated. And so I’m here to make the point that I’ve made at the past couple of Selectboard meetings.
What I view as a commonality amongst all sides here is that ultimately, if we want to help people participate, and if we want to see broader participation in town, it does require individual sacrifice.
Time, ultimately, is a privilege and it ultimately is linked to class. It can be given to involve your fellow voters to try to get them to turn out, whether to Town Meeting, open or Representative, or to the ballot.
But whether or not you’re debating it at Town Meeting or you’re voting on it at the ballot, the burden of informed participation, I believe, still should be held.
And you can call me elitist for saying that. I made $23,000 this year. You know, I choose to spend my time this way, and I don’t have a lot of the things that would limit my time the way other people do. I don’t have children, absolutely, but I do work to individually support myself. So the vulnerable people that are proposed as being represented here? I am, I think, one of them.
So I do think we have an obligation as people voting in a democracy to try to best inform ourselves. I believe that if you have the ability to help other people in your community, you have that obligation as well. If something comes easier to you, you should do that.
I was talking to [former Selectboard member] Franz [Reichsman] on the radio today, and I said, “I spend a lot of time when I go out to the bars. I’m bothering people my age to talk to them about things, about the budget, and I’m ruining the vibe.”
[Audience laughs.] What?
One thing that I feel is a misunderstanding or a false equivalency is saying that people who come to RTM or who would come to open Town Meeting would be better informed. It’s not saying these people are more capable. It’s saying these people either made a choice to commit more time to this. And some of that could be motivated by privilege — I don’t disagree. That’s what really, you know, grinds my gears.
I would just say I really strongly disagree that people advocating for Town Meeting are saying that they’re in any sort of different class than the rest of our town. And whether or not it’s coming to meeting or coming to the ballot, there’s still going to be unpaid labor that’s going to have to come from someone in the town to try to educate the rest of us who don’t have the ability to come to all the Selectboard meetings and keep up.
Gary Stroud, RTM member (D8):I want to ask Tom Franks about the comment he made about having people who are intelligent to vote. What did he mean by that? Does one need to be intelligent to vote on town issues?
Franks: I am not sure I said you need to be intelligent to vote. In fact, I can’t believe I did, because one of the things that I’m proposing is that if you’re a registered voter, you should be able to vote — period. (I kind of hope you’d be of sound mind, but that I don’t think that excludes you if you’re not, at least in our society.)
Matt Wojcik: I work here at the library, but I’m not on the clock, and I’m not speaking for the town, or anything, but myself.
I attended one Representative Town Meeting. It was the Covid year when I was helping tech support for folks who were attending remotely.
It was a long day. It was painful. I would say I don’t think there’s anybody in this room here that doesn’t think there aren’t problems with Representative Town Meeting.
I have really serious concerns about either of the alternatives that are proposed. Look at the ballot questions that are on this year’s ballot, right? Look at how hard they were to understand, how many people knew that if the first one passed, we would have no Representative Town Meeting this year. I didn’t know that. I thought all this would have to go through the charter process with the state.
That makes me even more concerned about this ballot question. How often have you seen a ballot question that was worded poorly, that was hard to understand, that you were poorly informed about, and it’s just there and you’ve got to vote on it or abstain and not have a voice in the matter?
You said a lot of facts about ballot questions as an alternative. I think there were a lot of implications in there. The inference I thought I was being asked to draw was that Representative Town Meeting led to Brattleboro’s poor economic condition compared to other towns. And I think that is very, very tenuous. I think the causality there is very, very difficult to establish.
But yeah, the ballot questions being difficult to understand, poorly written — there’s no opportunity to have an in-person conversation about them. I think the Selectboard and the town staff who were at Representative Town Meeting heard all of that debate. Now, whether they did anything with that, what they heard, I can’t say, but at least they heard it.
I think that there would be opportunities, probably, to expand people’s ability to participate, while keeping Representative Town Meeting as well.
I do think there are some problems with open Town Meeting. I do worry about people packing it for a particular issue, people not showing up many years, and then a very small number of people, potentially smaller than Representative Town Meeting, would decide important issues.
I agree that Representative Town Meeting has issues. I am more worried about what might happen with either of the other alternatives than I am about Representative Town Meeting at the moment.
Davis: There is one thing I would amplify, and I think it builds on what you were saying, Matt. There is a tradition in this town of the Selectboard listening to the debate at RTM.
RTM does not have the ability to say, “We want you to take $50,000 out of the sidewalk fund and move it over into the swimming pool fund.” We cannot do that. But at the end of the day, when there’s a long discussion, the Selectboard, more often than not, tries to match the decision, the discussion, the deliberation that took place at Town Meeting. They’re not required to, but they make that effort.
A quick couple of examples from last year.
One of the cuts was the sustainability coordinator.. It was clear at Town Meeting that nobody wanted to see that position go. The Selectboard found a way to fund that position, because that position brings in more money than we pay the sustainability coordinator.
We had a huge discussion in 2025 about the merits of the Acceptable Behavior Ordinance, and that was a very difficult decision. The Selectboard had put in a year working on that, and that was voted down. It was rescinded. That’s one of our checks on the Selectboard.
But then RTM fully funded the police department and enthusiastically endorsed the work of the BRAT team.
So one thing that comes out of RTM is listening, compromise, prioritization, balance.
Fric Spruyt, RTM member (D9): I’ve been an RTM member for many, many years. One year I missed was when we voted in the sustainability director or coordinator, which has paid off handsomely for the town and will for years to come. That was one situation where RTM increased the budget in a way that was wise and counter to what the Selectboard had proposed.
There are many times, in many details, when we have reduced the budget over the years. I think on average, we’ve reduced the budget every year a little bit. Some people have pointed out that technically we’re just voting up and down on a total number, but the fact is that practically, we are surgically adjusting the budget.
What the “one person, one vote” — which is very catchy phrase — gives us is basically like giving your mechanic a sledgehammer and no other tools. I think it will reduce participation and increase the budget over the long haul.
I think there have been a lot of false statements and false equivalencies, and use of statistics in ways that are questionable.
I have lived in many places with different forms of government — mayor, something equivalent to a Selectboard, open Town Meeting — and I have seen nothing like RTM in terms of the quality of the process, the community building aspect of the process, and the broader number of people who are intimate with the functioning of the town. And I think overall, that gains us more than we can really appreciate.
Trish Twining, RTM member (D9): Under Australian ballot, if an article is voted down, then what is the process to revise that article?
Gartenstein: When I was on the Selectboard, we had the dubious distinction of having the budget approved at Town Meeting and then rejected at Australian ballot. This was the first time we put the police/fire money in the budget, and we were back to square one.
We had an Australian ballot that had not particularly explained the reason for the rejection of the budget, and we were tasked with trying to come up with another budget to present to another Town Meeting that hopefully would get approval and that wouldn’t get rejected in another Australian ballot.
But if the budget is rejected at Australian ballot, current process is that it goes back to Selectboard to propose a new budget.
O’Connor: I want everybody to understand this when they go into the ballot box or the polls. As I said, there are three questions. There’s the RTM question, which is not a charter change. The Australian ballot question and the open town meeting question are charter changes.
But they’re not an either/or. You’re going to vote yes or no on Australian ballot and you’re going to vote yes or no on open Town Meeting. Which means Australian ballot can pass, which means open Town Meeting can pass.
[That means] there’s a possibility that we could be sending to the Legislature two charter changes that are diametrically opposed to each other.
The legislature is just going to take what we send them, and they may get two charter change votes that say two opposite things. Now, what happens when it gets up there? They may look at us and say, “You guys just sent us two things that are diametrically opposed. We’re sending it back.” Or they may figure out their own solution and say, “We’re going to set it up for you.”
The charter commission is still in existence, and we still have our charter process open. So there is an opportunity through the charter revision process to do something, but I’m speaking about how we could end up on March 3. I know it’s really confusing.
If the town votes to keep Representative Town Meeting, we keep it, and it doesn’t matter what the votes are on the open Town Meeting question and the Australian ballot question, even if the town overwhelmingly goes, “Yeah, we want open Town Meeting” or “Yeah, we want Australian ballot.”
If we keep Representative Town Meeting, those votes do not count.
Gemma Seymour, RTM member (D8): It’s my opinion that RTM works far better than the alternatives. But of course, no position on this issue is really anything that anyone can substantiate with direct evidence, since three systems can’t coexist at the same time in the same place.
I predict that if RTM is rescinded, it will be a detriment to the town. If my prediction turns out to not be accurate, then I predict that the reason for that will be because of my hard work and the hard work of people like me, who will be doing everything we possibly can to ensure better government, regardless of its form.
That being said, when it comes to legal interpretation, I am what is known as a textualist, or an original meaning originalist. I believe the law is what the text of the law means at the time of its passage to the people it binds, not whatever the legislatures who passed the law intended its effect to be, or what we might like it to mean.
I therefore dispute the idea that should RTM be voted down, that this would take immediate effect, because that is not what either the Brattleboro charter or the Vermont statutes say.
Because it does constitute charter change, it must be approved by the Legislature.
Holhut: OK, we covered an awful lot of ground tonight. So now comes to the important part, which is you, your part: voting.
Early election ballots are now available at the town clerk’s office. And in case you’ve forgotten, Election Day is Tuesday, March 3 — the first Tuesday in March — from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the American Legion Post 5 on 32 Linden St. The election results will be posted on brattleboro.gov/elections.
If you’re not registered to vote, or if you want to check your status as a voter, you can visit the Vermont voter portal at vote.vermont.gov/public/dashboard, or if you’d like to do it in person, just stop by the Town Clerk’s Office. They’re open from 8:30 a.m. to noon and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. And you can register to vote there, as I understand that with early voting. your ballots can be cast there until the end of the day on Monday, March 2.
So all we can say is thank you for participating.
For more than six decades, Brattleboro has been the only town in Vermont that governs itself with Representative Town Meeting, where all town voters elect representatives to participate in what otherwise would be a traditional New England Town Meeting.
In 2025, voters successfully petitioned the town to put the question of governance to a full Australian ballot vote. The Selectboard added a question of its own to create a trifecta of ballot questions, staging our own twisted municipal Monty Hall problem.
This is a big deal, and we’re using our editorial prerogative to devote a good deal of this week’s newspaper to making sure voters in our county’s largest town have a good idea about their choices and their consequences.
The combination of results could create unintended consequences. With positive outcomes to either or both of two questions requiring a change to the town charter, the state Legislature would have to step in, bringing in a years-long timetable and no guarantees of the result.
With the help of Brooks Memorial Library and BCTV, The Commons produced a Voices Live! panel to explore the three questions, weigh some pros and cons, and discuss the process.
“Our hope tonight is to have a little bit different format than you’ve had through the hearings that have been incredibly informative over the last couple of weeks,” said Trish Twining, who heads the development efforts for Vermont Independent Media, the nonprofit that publishes this newspaper, in introducing the program on our behalf.
Twining, also a Representative Town Meeting member, has been advocating for The Commons to take a deep dive into this topic. We deeply appreciate her persistence in wanting us to play a stronger role in civic education about such a consequential decision for Brattleboro voters this year.
So, to that end, we assembled people who could speak to the questions in a discussion moderated by Deputy Editor Randolph T. Holhut. The speakers included:
• Kate O’Connor, chair of the Charter Revision Commission.
• Andy Davis, an advocate for Representative Town Meeting in its current form.
• Tom Franks, an advocate for the Australian ballot who helped organize the petition drive to let voters decide the matter.
• David Gartenstein, Brattleboro town moderator and former Selectboard member, a proponent of open Town Meeting.
Some other notes:
• Next week’s newspaper marks the last opportunity for contributions of letters and opinions about the choices facing voters this March. Deadline for consideration is Friday, Feb. 20 for the Feb. 25 issue. Please send contributions to voices@commonsnews.org. We still have a mountain of letters about Representative Town Meeting all ready to publish. Thank you to readers and civic and municipal leaders for a robust and intelligent discussion in these pages.
• As is our custom, material in The Commons presented in interview format is edited gently for clarity, readability, and space (though we have attempted to be unstinting in devoting the space we need to bring you this information). Words not spoken by interview subjects appear in brackets, as do editorial clarifications. Our intent is to be faithful to everyone’s words, tone, and content while removing spoken-word impediments that are confusing and distracting when committed to print.
• To stream the conversation, visit brattleborotv.org.
Thank you to all the forum participants — panelists and audience, and our friends at the library and BCTV — for making this forum provocative, yet civil. —Jeff Potter, editor-in-chief
This News Brattleboro was submitted to The Commons.