Dr. David Hopson
As we celebrate the unofficial start of the summer season on Memorial Day weekend, I hope that among all of the family activities, sales events, and the extra day off, that we remembered those men and women who have given their lives in military service to provide the freedoms we enjoy today. As most people know, our present Memorial Day started as “Decoration Day” to memorialize the military members who died in service during the Civil War. Over time the day of remembrance expanded and became formalized through federal legislation in 1967 and honors all military personnel that made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
I have written in the past about how I believe town meetings are the ultimate form of democracy in this country (and are somewhat unique to New England). As superintendent I’ve had the privilege to attend and participate in multiple town meetings each year for the last decade and, as a town moderator, had the opportunity to run town meetings in Blandford for even more years. I’ve noticed over the years a consistency in the verbal sparring, the use of proper parliamentary procedure, and concerns over budgets. Despite every moderator running meetings slightly differently, the constant is that all registered voters get an equal opportunity to make their points, the meetings progress in an orderly fashion, and the majority opinion is what counts in the end. This interaction of people, ideas, and realities makes for interesting drama, yet provides great insight into the problems and concerns in the town – at least for those voters who attend town meetings.
This is one of the larger problems that I see – fewer and fewer people take the time, make the effort, and study the issues in order to participate in town meetings, where decisions impacting every citizen are made. While there was the occasional wait to reach a quorum in some towns in the past, what I’m seeing more recently is not only a wait to reach a quorum, but even having to reschedule town meetings due to a lack of a quorum. While I could understand that if the quorum was 50% of the registered voters, what we’re seeing is a lack of a quorum in towns where the quorum can be 5 or 10% of registered voters. I’ve also noticed a continued decrease in the numbers of younger voters participating in town meetings. While this should not be a great surprise given the decreasing numbers of people who take the time to vote in town, state, or even national elections, I don’t know that this bodes well for a democracy based upon the will of the majority if, under the right conditions, the majority deciding issues at a town meeting could be as few as 1 person out of nearly 40 voters. Essentially, if a town has a 1,000 registered voters, and requires 5% to hold a town meeting (meaning you’d need 50 voters to met the quorum requirement), then a majority at that meeting would then be 26 voters – this means that nearly 40 people have entrusted their future, their ideas, and their participation to the 1 person who showed up at the meeting.
If we couple this with the recognition that we have both elected and appointed offices in each town that go unfilled each year, then how can we say that we’re exercising the democratic freedoms that so many men and women in uniform have sacrificed their lives to provide to the rest of us? Small towns in New England are special places to live and despite the increased regulations, requirements, and difficulty of getting business done with what amounts to volunteers holding government offices, they are among the last places where each person’s voice and commitment to service can truly make a difference. Small towns are also the place where the saying, “if you haven’t participated in the governing process, you shouldn’t get to complain” holds truer than anywhere else.
How do we, as communities, build upon our children’s exposure to governing themselves, which starts in school with the election of class officers, their participation in student council, their participation in class and student activity meetings, and their ability to bring things forward for the school to consider and act upon? How do we continue and expand upon their engagement in the democratic process, from voting to participating in town meetings, from volunteering to help in so many functions to volunteering to serve as an appointed or elected official, and provide them the support and encouragement to continue to do so throughout their lives? Despite meeting the Jeffersonian ideal of educated citizens, we’ve somehow missed creating the incentive to get our educated citizens participating in the democratic process in a meaningful way and in more than minimum numbers, something that seems critical to making our small towns successful in the future.
