The writer represents District 9 as a member of Brattleboro’s Representative Town Meeting.
BRATTLEBORO-I am concerned that the discussion about Brattleboro’s Representative Town Meeting (RTM) is getting stuck in considerations of efficiency as a measure of good democracy.
I agree that asking voters to read lengthy documents before the meeting, talk to their neighbors and discuss options, and then figure out a way to make time for a day-long meeting is asking a lot of people these days. But that does not mean it is not worth doing. Especially when the alternative is checking off a binary option on a piece of paper.
Yes, that would be easier, but it would not guarantee that more people would actually come to vote, and it would turn even more power over creating the budget to the five people on the Selectboard.
By going to an all-paper-ballot system, with no Town Meeting component (whether open or representative), Brattleboro would be losing a valuable mechanism of participatory democracy that once it is gone would not likely ever come back.
Most things worth doing take effort.
This call for an end to RTM is coming at the same time that people are expressing great concern about our steadily increasing budget. Ending RTM will not make our budget issues go away and will not make it any easier to figure out the best way forward; in fact, it could make doing so significantly harder. With no Town Meeting, voters can only respond with yes or no to whatever the Selectboard proposes. That is not more voice; that is less.
With all of the local and national issues that are affecting us now, we should be engaging more people in the discussion about the budget and town priorities. Town Meeting provides discussion of both in the informational sessions beforehand and the meeting itself. Going with Australian ballot voting for everything eliminates the requirement for that discussion before voting, and leads us further down the path of binary thinking and polarization.
I support keeping Representative Town Meeting because those elected members are committing to doing the work to be part of the discussion and the gathering of information.
I do not think that RTM is perfect, but with modifications, it can serve us well. I can also be supportive of open Town Meeting, if Brattleboro residents choose that option over RTM.
But I will be very sad if Brattleboro changes to Australian ballot, giving up this mechanism we still have to come together and create our own unique path forward.
Linda Bailey
Brattleboro
The writer represents District 9 as a member of Brattleboro’s Representative Town Meeting.
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