16 Things Every Citizen Should Know About Town Meeting

16 Things Every Citizen Should Know About Town Meeting

By H. Bernard Waugh, Jr., with 2015 Update by Cordell A. Johnston

This article, written by H. Bernard Waugh, Jr., then NHMA Legal Counsel, first appeared in Town and City magazine in February, 1990. It has been updated by Cordell A. Johnston, NHMA Government Affairs Counsel, where necessary. Although this article was first written before the adoption of “SB 2,” and therefore contemplated only the “traditional” form of town meeting, almost everything in it applies to SB 2 town meetings as well.

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We keep hearing it in New Hampshire: “Town meetings don’t work anymore.” “They’re an anachronism.” “They’re rigged.” “Nothing important is decided there.” But these are self-fulfilling prophesies. Local voter apathy feeds on itself.

It’s not all apathy, either. This article assumes that part of the problem is good old honest ignorance: people who’ve moved in from places without town meetings; young people who grew up in families with no tradition of participation for them to absorb; people who for years have heard their cynical friends telling them they can’t make a difference and never bothered to find out the truth.

This is for them, and you. Officials and others receiving this magazine should feel free to share or reproduce this article for other voters. An informed town is in everyone’s interest. In the end, nobody benefits from voter ignorance.

Please read the full article here