There are a few unwritten rules that apply to living in a small town. One: Never say, “I’m from here,” if you weren’t born there. Two: Never speak ill of the town high school football team no matter what their record is, and Three: Don’t mess with Town Meeting.
Lynnfield’s Board of Selectmen is about to trifle with Rule Three with its decision to appoint a Study Committee to take a hard look at Town Meeting rules and practices. Make no mistake, Town Moderator Arthur Bourque is well-intentioned and no doubt well-informed in stating, “I think it is time to address a number of issues we have in how we run our town meeting.”
The problem with well intended ideas is that they have an unerring capability of crashing into immovable objects. Town Meeting is more than just an almost-pure form of government firmly anchored in small towns and giving residents an opportunity to shape government.
It is that most public of opportunities for people who pass each other every day at the coffee shop or on the street to come together and collectively debate their quality of life and how their tax dollars are spent.
Potential Study Committee topics like what day Town Meeting should be held and expediting the check-in process are worthy of study. But combine discussion on those topics with a review of Town Meeting quorum and warrant formats and the lid on top of Pandora’s Box starts to swing open.
It’s easy to say the mechanics of how Town Meeting works can be viewed in the abstract and clinically evaluated. But anyone who has sat through a Town Meeting knows the process and procedures are often marked by personality clashes, tests of will and public displays of differences that have simmered in private for a long time.
Anyone viewing that statement as overly dramatic should think back to the climactic debate over bringing a rail trail to Lynnfield. Personalities and competing wills were certainly on display during that debate. After all, Town Meeting is a chance for people to talk about public concerns affecting their lives.
To his credit, Bourque appreciates the “lengthy discussion” sure to be triggered by a reexamination of the quorum threshold. Quorums, as Town Meeting members can attest, have been a source of consternation, especially when quorum gets called part way through Town Meeting at the expense of the business at hand.
Bourque isn’t shying away from the challenges surrounding a critical examination of Town Meeting. In proposing a procedural review, he noted how Lynnfield moderators have put their own stamp on Town Meetings and he observed how a Study Committee review will probably be a yearlong task before any recommendations are made.
Summed up, a Town Meeting Study Committee will be an exhaustive, probably contentious, process playing an ultimately important role in keeping Democracy healthy in Lynnfield.