BRATTLEBORO-I strongly support Town Meeting form of government for Brattleboro, because it calls on we the people to join together, deliberate, and serve as a check on how the Selectboard proposes to operate the town.
At Town Meeting, we listen carefully to each other. We respectfully consider what our neighbors have to say. We thoughtfully deliberate about what to do. Then we collectively decide about what best serves the public interest.
Open Town Meeting is my preference over Representative Town Meeting, because I have never seen a good reason that justifies excluding people who live in Brattleboro from joining in our participatory democracy.
I oppose replacing Town Meeting with Australian ballot, because that would limit our impact on town government to electing and presenting our positions to the Selectboard, and then casting a secret ballot about the budget.
Australian ballot is not deliberative. It does not provide for discussion and amendment of articles before a public vote. It would further concentrate power over town government in the Selectboard and shift it away from we the people.
Town Meeting takes time and effort to attend, but that does not make it elitist or antidemocratic. Town Meeting takes time because it is deliberative, because it takes time to listen to our neighbors before making decisions. That is a good thing.
People argue that Town Meeting has not shown fiscal responsibility and authorizes too much human services spending, but it is the Selectboard that designs our budgets. The amount of annual human services funding approved by Town Meeting pales in comparison to the tax increases that the Selectboard has been including in Brattleboro’s annual budgets for years.
Particularly now, when our democratic institutions and freedoms are under constant attack by the federal government, we should protect and preserve our deliberative democracy by supporting our Town Meeting form of government.
David Gartenstein
Brattleboro
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