BRATTLEBORO-As the Charter Revision Committee presents its proposed charter to the Selectboard, one principle should be non-negotiable: Every registered voter deserves an equal voice in decisions that affect the entire town.
The CRC was never opposed to Representative Town Meeting. It was never opposed to open Town Meeting. And it was never advocating for every decision to be made by all registered voters.
But requiring residents to spend eight, 10, or 12 hours physically attending a meeting inevitably excludes people who are not able to do so - the residents who are elderly or disabled, shift workers, single parents and caregivers, people dependent on public transportation, those serving on active military duty, people who travel for work, and residents facing economic or other constraints.
That is not broad participation. It is participation limited to those who have the time, flexibility, and ability to endure an all-day meeting.
And we should be honest about who remains in the room. Town Meeting attendees arrive with a wide range of opinions, experience, expertise, and personal agendas. Attendance does not confer special competence, nor does physical presence make a group inherently more deliberative or representative of the town as a whole. A room full of people who can stay for 12 hours is not a substitute for the voices of the people who cannot.
Against that backdrop, why would the proposed charter require 60% of voters to reject a budget approved by open Town Meeting?
The justification that open Town Meeting will lose its power if it does not have this protection should not determine whose voice counts. No meeting should be given extra power by making it harder for the rest of the town to disagree.
And then voters face a ballot question written in the negative: "Do you vote in the affirmative not to pass the proposed budget?"
Where is the clarity in that?
If we truly believe in representative government, then the people who cannot spend an entire day in a meeting cannot be treated as second-class participants in their own democracy.
The Selectboard has an opportunity to fix this. Strike the 60% threshold. Give every registered voter an equal opportunity to approve or reject the town budget.
A town's budget belongs to the entire town. Democracy should not be an endurance contest.
Timothy Belknap
Brattleboro
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