A Charter Commission: Now What?

A Charter Commission:  Now What?

Amherst4All worked hard and obtained the requisite number of signatures on their petition to place a question on the spring ballot , whether or not the Town should create a Charter Commission to “study” town government and recommend changes.  I put “study” in scare quotes because, although Amherst4All changed their language from “change” to “study” in mid-stream, their objective has always been clear:  to replace our Town Meeting/Select Board form of government with a mayor/city council form.  I think this is a very bad idea, and I shall be explaining why over the coming weeks.  I shall also suggest some changes in our governance that preserve town meeting, strengthen the executive functions and provide clearer checks and balances.  If a Charter Commission is elected, I hope that it will consider these as well as other ideas.  Much will depend on their choice of a consultant and the imagination and flexibility he/she brings.  The past two charter commissions selected consultants who had unfortunate blinders.  The first charter commission struggled against the consultant; the second didn’t bother.

Of course, everything depends upon who is elected to the commission, and this depends upon who runs.  Bizarrely, the state requires that the candidates for commissioners be on the same ballot that decides whether or not to create a commission.  Whether I vote to create a charter commission depends entirely on the slate of candidates on that ballot.  If the candidates represent a diversity of points of view about town governance, I will vote in favor of creating a commission.

I will do so with fear and trepidation, though.  This vote will be the first indication of the role that money will play in the politics of the future in Amherst.  The moneyed and commercial interests in town are mostly in support of doing away with town meeting and will doubtless provide support for candidates who share this viewpoint.  Whether pro-town meeting candidates will choose to run and can match these resources remains to be seen. But the time is now; candidates can take out papers from the Town Clerk’s office and must get fifty validated signatures over the next six or seven weeks.  Amherst4All originally said that they were going to run a slate of candidates, so I expect they will do so and provide the resources to run a vigorous campaign.  To my knowledge, supporters of town meeting do not have a similarly well-organized effort.

What they do have is a better message, although they have not in the past delivered it very effectively.  In my prior posts I have presented my take on that message.  In future posts I will explain why I think a mayor/council form of government is both inappropriate for Amherst and inherently more susceptible to abuse than the town meeting/select board form that has served us well for over seventy-five years.

Strengthening Town  Meeting 

In this series of commentaries, I have tried to show that Town Meeting is an appropriate and effective check on the executive branch of town government.  It is central to the tradition and character of Amherst.  It is democratic, representative and a blend of the civic with the political.  It is all of these things, but it does them imperfectly.  Here are some suggestions for strengthening Town Meeting.  If it turns out that we do elect a Charter Commission, I urge their consideration.

1. Reduce the size of town meeting to 180 members - 18 (instead of 24) from each precinct.  This number is still large enough to make Town Meeting representative of the town, yet it would increase the likelihood of competition for membership in more precincts.  Since I believe strongly that candidates for Town Meeting should not seek signatures to run (since they do not represent their precinct but are representative of their precinct), I think that more competition for seats would be a good thing.
2. In the newspaper, candidates for town meeting are given a few words to explain why they want to serve.  We get boilerplate answers.  Instead, the Town Meeting Coordinating Committee should construct an issue-based question for candidates to answer and the newspaper should give them enough space to answer.  If the newspaper does not do this, it should be a separate leaflet distributed within each precinct.
3. The Town Meeting Coordinating Committee should also follow up with each member who misses a meeting.The idea is not to shame them, but to remind them that membership has its obligations.
4. At the same time, Town Meeting should have fewer sessions in the spring especially.  A smaller number of members and the advent of electronic voting should both contribute to this.  All votes can be recorded votes, no longer necessitating standing votes or ballot votes.
5. Only elected Town Meeting members should vote.  Ex officio members (town officials, select board, school committee) may make motions, present arguments and answer questions, but not vote.
6. Discussing and amending should be separated from voting.  For any article, discussion pro and con, amendments, substitute motions, and motions to refer, table or dismiss should be made at one session and voted at the next session.  In between the two sessions, the Moderator serving as parliamentarian can organize the proper sequence of votes under that article, and at the subsequent session voting will occur without discussion or further parliamentary action.  This would be a significant change in the way Town Meeting acts but it would have many advantages and would conform to the procedures in other complex voting bodies.  It would eliminate the confusion that occurs when motions and amendments are made from the floor and would clarify in writing on the motion sheet the sequence in which motions will be voted.  It will give members time to consider their positions on such motions so they can come to the voting session prepared to vote.  It will eliminate the need for “calling the question,” since discussion and voting are separated.  
7. The franchise should be strengthened by allowing resident non-citizens and high school students to vote in town elections and to be candidates for Town Meeting.  Enfranchising resident non-citizens in town elections has been proposed many times to Town Meeting and passed overwhelmingly each time, only to die at the Statehouse.  Let’s keep trying and asking Rep. Story and Sen. Rosenberg what it would take to make it actually happen.  Allowing teenagers to participate in local politics  seems to me obviously a good idea.  I see no downside to either of these moves, and a great strengthening of our town and our civic life as a result of them.
8. The Town Meeting Coordinating Committee (TMCC) was a good idea that was insufficiently thought through.  It has no legal status and no real role in the matters coming before Town Meeting,  It should be written into the Town Charter, and its name changed to reflect its enhanced role.  It should be the voice of the membership in procedural dealings with the Moderator.  

If the petition drive is successful, as I expect it to be, I hope that voters committed to preserving and strengthening Town Meeting can be urged to run for the Charter Commission.  Discussions among the Commissioners could become a model for conducting political debates in Amherst.

Town Meeting: Civic or Political?

Town Meeting:  Civic or Political?

It’s funny how two words, civic and political, with virtually identical roots ( in Latin and Greek) have seen their implications separate over the centuries.  Once they both meant being active in the affairs of the community.  Now they have come to have subtle differences.  To be civic is to serve disinterestedly; to be civic-minded is to put the interests of the community before one’s own.  To be political is to want to win; to be engaged in shaping acts of government in a particular direction or in accord with a political sentiment one shares.

Civic activity has come to seem higher, nobler, more virtuous, striving for the best, while political activity is down-and-dirty, compromising, horse-trading, settling for the good-enough. Ordinarily, “we” are civic-minded, while “they” are political.  “We” have the interests of the community at heart, while “they” are serving a special interest or set of resentments.  “We” know what’s best for the town; “they” are engaging in social engineering.

In the current long-lasting debate about Town Meeting, defenders of that institution speak as though it were wrapped in civic duty, while a town council would easily succumb to partisanship and deal-making.    Partisans of the mayor/council form of government, of course, turn this on its head and claim civic virtue for their imagined sober-minded councilors, while pointing to the conniving within town meeting.

But one person’s conniving is another person’s coalition-building.  For one person, politics is a dirty word; for another it is the essence of democracy.  Citizens treat political life just as they treat social life.  They join together in quasi-permanent organizations like political parties and in situational coalitions around specific issues.  There is no difference between civic and political.

In Amherst, and most towns with a town meeting/select board form of government, candidates run for office unaffiliated to any political party.  In cities with a mayor/council form of government, candidates often run with labels affiliating them with a party or as an independent.  Amherst certainly has political parties active in state and national politics, but they stay clear of local politics.  Personally, I like this absence of labels in local politics, but it does mean that in town meeting coalition-building becomes especially important and increasingly noticeable.

Some of the coalitions in town meeting mirror state and national politics.  One continuum has “less spending” at one end and “more services” at the other.  Another continuum has “economic development” at one end and “open space” at the other.  Still another has “general support of town government” at one end and “general suspicion of town government” at the other.  Of course I am painting with too broad a brush; there are a great many shadings and nuances, and attitudes can shift from one issue to the next.

Town Meeting is the ideal arena for these coalitions and attitudes to confront each other.  It has specific and quite rigid rules of procedure and decorum.  When a majority of members feel that a debate has gone on long enough it stops.  Town Meeting is the place where civic-mindedness and politics meet.  We need places like that.

What would happen if we didn’t have town meeting?  For a while, Amherst would continue to be a place where “only the h is silent.”  But gradually, I suspect, Amherst residents would become less political - would leave politics to the pros, like the councilors we elect and pay.  This would change the character of our town.  Decisions about the quality of life in Amherst would be made by five or six councilors,  not 240 residents and neighbors.  Would these councilors exemplify the melding of political action with civic-mindedness?  I will write about this in a subsequent commentary.

The Case for Town Meeting:  Representation

One of the common criticisms of Town Meeting from those who wish to abolish it is that it is not representative of Amherst’s voters.  In fact, I suspect that their real concern is that it is all too representative.  While they point to the frequency with which elections to Town Meeting seats are uncontested,  the age and relative well-being of most town meeting members, the lack of racial and ethnic diversity,  they rarely point to the diversity of opinions, points of view and positions on the issues.  One can be forgiven for thinking that it is this diversity that critics really object to.

How representative is Town Meeting?  My answer is, very.  That is to say, it is representative of the registered voters of the town.  But that begs a more fundamental question: how representative of the town are the registered voters?  Here the answer is more equivocal.  It is in the nature of our community that individuals and families come for a few years and then leave; their degrees are finished, they do not receive tenure, their children grow up.  Many of these families are temporarily poor. Further, we have many long-term residents who are not citizens, who choose to retain their citizenship in their birth countries.  We are, in other words, an educational community.  Not only that, we are an expensive educational communities; the consequence of having so much tax-exempt land in Amherst is very high taxes on the rest of the property.  Many choose to live in the numerous rental developments in town or in less expensive adjacent communities.  So many residents choose not to register to vote in Amherst because they are transient. Other residents would register if they could but they are proscribed by law from either voting for or serving in Town Meeting.

I would remedy this inequity by two changes:  I would allow resident non-citizens to vote in local elections and serve on local boards and in town meeting.  And I would lower the franchise for local elections to age sixteen.  This would allow registered voters to more closely mirror the residents of the town.  But these matters sadly do not belong in this discussion.

So given that town meeting does not and cannot mirror the town’s demography (nor does or would any elected body like a town council),  how representative of differing opinions and positions and even fundamental political philosophies is town meeting?  Here the record is very good.  When the representative town meeting was established in 1938, the membership was deliberately set high: twenty-four members elected from each of the ten precincts.  The thought was that the larger the body the more likely it was to be representative of the diversity of opinion and philosophy in Amherst.  These 240 members did not represent other Amherst voters, they were representative of Amherst voters.  While they were expected to form their own opinions and vote their own minds, by having so many minds it could be reasonably assumed that a wide range of opinions would be represented.  And so it has.  It is easy to be a candidate for a town meeting seat, and so it should be.  But perhaps it should not be quite so easy to win that seat.  Like its opponents, I would gladly see more contested races for town meeting membership.

I am happy with a large representative town meeting.  However, I also believe that a somewhat smaller size can be representative and democratic. There are good reasons to support a smaller number.  Town meeting would be shorter, because fewer voices would ask to be heard.  And it is more likely that these voices would have won their membership in elections that were contested, thus making it more likely that they would be representative of voters who voted in higher numbers.  In 1994 the number I was willing to support was 180.  Today I would consider going even lower.  A smaller town meeting, combined with the electronic voting that will be introduced next year, will make for shorter and more efficient sessions.  And this in turn will make serving in town meeting more appealing to more voters.  Right now the number of members is inscribed in our Town Charter, so a lowering in membership would require a change in the charter.  Perhaps other changes in the charter would enhance town meeting’s representativeness.  If a Charter Commission would  examine these things I would be delighted to support it.

Currently the leaders of Amherst for All have changed their tune a bit - they are now framing the drive for a Charter Commission as an opportunity to “study” our town government.  Great.  Let’s take them at their word.

The Case for Town Meeting:  Democracy 

I have already referred to democracy several times in earlier commentaries.  I have not yet mentioned the familiar old bromide ascribed to Churchill and many others that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.  We have watched, at the national level, as basic democratic institutions have been threatened,  weakened and corrupted by big money, by gerrymandering, by income inequality, by lingering racism, by political extremism.  And here and now it is being threatened for a third time in less than twenty-five years by the desire to eliminate Amherst’s town meeting.

Melodramatic, I know.  Proponents of a new mayor/council charter can rightfully point to low voter turnout, excessive absenteeism among Town Meeting members, and reluctance of candidates to offer themselves for elective and appointed boards as threats to democracy.   And the newish phenomenon of online snarky comment has lowered the quality of public political comment to subterranean levels.  Why would anyone volunteer for public service in order to be attacked, to have their motives and abilities impugned, by anonymous trolls?  The Open Meeting Law, which makes boards and committees transparent, also makes it virtually impossible for new ideas to germinate and then flourish without being cut off and attacked before they are fully grown.  It is easy for disagreements in an open session to be nudged into conflict, for committee members to seek (and find) partisans in the blogosphere until elections for town boards become debased the way our national elections have become.

In this environment, town meeting, with its face-to-face character, its insistence on decorum, its rules to limit the length of speeches, seems an especially valuable political institution for the town.  And, like all democratic institutions, fragile.  At all times, Town Meeting is valuable, but in this time it seems essential.

But is Town Meeting living up to its democratic nature?  Its critics - who are sponsoring the current petition drive to replace it — have valid and important beliefs about this.  Those (of us) who believe in it cannot overlook their criticisms or be sanguine about its future.  I shall devote a future commentary to Town Meeting’s problems.  But the important question for Amherst voters as they contemplate the creation of the third Charter Commission in twenty years is whether the faults in Town Meeting can be fixed or whether they are so intrinsic that the institution should be abolished?

And if town voters were to vote to abolish it, would it be replaced with another form of government that still allowed town residents a substantial voice in their government?  The first Charter Commission proposed a smaller town meeting and an enhanced town council.  The voters did not like it.  The second Charter Commission proposed to do away with town meeting and to create a council with both at-large and neighborhood councillors.  On two occasion, voters rejected that.  The first charter — which I participated in crafting — preserved the essence of democracy.  The same cannot be said of the second.  Perhaps we should wonder why?

Town Meeting is democracy at work.  It is messy.  The motions presented to it by boards and committees can be upended by amendments and substitute motions.  Debate can be cut off too soon or not soon enough.  Opinion leaders speak out and others take their cue from them.  Some are regularly suspicious of town  government and town boards.  Some are suspicious of any motions that seem to be advantageous to developers or landlords.  Some members speak too much; others not enough.  In addition to the business presented to it by boards and committees, Town Meeting considers petitions from individual members and citizens.  These are always serious but not always pertinent.  Factions form and fade away.  Some members seem not to have read the article under debate; others have read it all too carefully and are ready to nitpick it to death.  Debate is lively, argumentative and sometimes edgy.  

All of this leads to frustration and annoyance for the town leaders who have spent much time crafting and debating articles before they appear on the floor of town meeting.  Even more irritating to them are members who apparently have not read the materials that provide the rationale for motions on the floor.  

This frustration is understandable, but it needs to be curbed.  Democracy is predicated on the assumption that voters are of different minds on issues.  Not only different minds but also different priorities; what is essential to one group is frivolous or trivial or ominous to another.  It is reasonable for neighbors to be concerned about unexpected changes in zoning; it is incumbent upon the Planning Board or other proposers to demonstrate that such changes are for the greater good.

This messiness should be abided because town meeting is representative of Amherst’s voters.  Amherst for All, which is spearheading the current petition drive to establish a Charter Commission, has raised doubts about this.  They believe that town meeting does not represent the voters of Amherst and they even question whether it is representative of the voters of Amherst.  I will write at greater length about this question in a subsequent commentary.  Here I will only say that a large representative town meeting is more representative than a small board or committee, however chosen or elected.  A political structure containing both a large body giving voice to the people and smaller boards and committees to do the hard work of governing and crafting legislation is on a strong foundation.  Both should learn to bear with each other and  their deficiencies.

The Case for Town Meeting: Tradition

The Case for Town Meeting:  Tradition

The argument for tradition is both a strong and weak part of the case for town meeting.  It is strong because it is an essential link to our past.  It is New England. It is the history and character of Amherst.   Preserving town meeting is important in the same way that preserving the Dickinson Homestead is important.  It links us to something both valuable and fragile.  Perhaps I need not argue the value; most people acknowledge that both knowing and preserving our history is valuable.  But the fragility is less often remarked upon.

When I joined town meeting there were a few who remembered when Representative Town Meeting was established in 1938, to replace the open town meeting which Amherst had outgrown.  Now I imagine there are none.  The past keeps slipping away both in individual and collective memories.  That’s why we need to make sure that the useful past is preserved in our institutional memory.

Part of Amherst’s useful past, strangely enough, is the realization that town meeting has not been a particularly virtuous or progressive body.  Look at the records from the18th and 19th centuries and you discover that it has been cantankerous and mean-spirited on many occasions.  The early founders, whom we honor on our street signs, didn’t always love or trust one other.  Complaints about town meeting are as old as town meeting itself.

But somehow, in spite of complaints and frustrations, the Select Board/Town Meeting governance got things done, made decisions, encouraged development of infrastructure and institutions, linked our town to the great educational institutions which are the source of our intellectual and economic  wealth.  There is nothing much new about the current complaints or the current progress either.  We still encourage and distrust development.

We have a historical commission to ensure that physical links to our history are preserved and honored.  We have an unparalleled resource at the Jones Library in the extensive archives which celebrate and preserve our past.  We have cared enough about the mural at West Cemetery to arrange for its re-creation when the wall on which it is currently displayed is demolished in favor of new construction.

When, at town meeting sessions,  the “constable” proclaims “Mr. Moderator, we have a quorum,”  we are being true to a tradition as old as the town, and those are roots, for better and for worse, worth protecting.  The question is, can we preserve the tradition while ensuring that town meeting meets the challenges facing the town today.  

The appeal to tradition risks sentimentality.  And so does the appeal to democracy.  Traditional societies have not been notably democratic, and democracy itself has had a rough go both in the United States and elsewhere.  But I emphatically appeal to both.  Government of, by and for the people needs to work itself out of its current dilemmas rather than hope a small group will rescue it.  And tradition, especially in a town like Amherst where there is a larger than usual built-in transiency, is a central part of our character.  We preserve our distinguished older buildings as a buttress against the rather less successful recent ones.  But of course we install plumbing and electricity in them.  We preserve our open spaces and accept, sometimes reluctantly, the trade-off of density in our village centers.

And so too should we protect the political structures that bind us to our history and are central to our character.  Luckily, they have served us well, as I shall try to show in subsequent commentaries.  I think they can profit from some renovation, but I want to strengthen them, not abandon them.  

I grew up in a bedroom community on Chicago’s North Shore.  The husbands went to work in the city and the wives stayed home.  No one paid much attention to village government.  As long as the streets were cleared and the trash collected we were content to let the town manager and trustees run the government.  So it was a jolt to come to Amherst with my young family in 1970.  Town voters actually made the decisions about money, land use, and policy, and that seemed utterly archaic.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that self-government by the people was not at all archaic; in the scheme of things it is still a relatively new idea.  And an idea that is still developing and still at risk.

The tradition that Town Meeting speaks to is what historian Carl Becker called “our great experiment in democracy.”  Let’s not give up on it.

Response to Nick Grabbe

Response to Nick Grabbe's 10 Points

Nick has been kind enough to comment on my posts, and has asked for my response to his points.  Here it is.  Nick's points are numbered, and my comments are italicized below each.

1. There's little discussion of issues before a Town Meeting election, and name recognition is the most important qualification.

It depends on the issue.  And it depends on the metric you use to determine how little is “little.”  If the letter page in the Bulletin is an indication, some issues are very much discussed.  When The Retreat was an issue it was a hot issue.  Name recognition is a reasonable way of voting for town meeting members.  If a candidate has been active in town, has spoken or written on issues, why is that not a good way to choose them?  In Precinct 6 where I live, during the more than two decades I ran for town meeting, name recognition yielded a diverse group of members who were not of one mind on issues.

2. Election turnout is very low, an indication that most voters are disengaged.

When seats are uncontested turnouts are low.  This is true too in Northampton which has a mayor/council form of government.  This is too bad, but unsurprising.  I see no reason to ascribe this to any particular form of government.  When seats on the Select Board, School Committee and Library Trustees were contested and associated with controversies, turnouts were higher.

3. Town Meeting can't respond quickly to crises and opportunities.

Special town meetings can be and have been called to deal with situations that needed emergency attention.

4. Amherst has diffuse leadership, with no one accountable for decisions.

I’m baffled by this assertion, which has been voiced over the years.  We have one town manager who was given a strong leadership position when the town adopted and the state approved a “strong town manager”  form of government.  He is accountable to the Select Board, which conducts an annual public evaluation of his performance.  The Select Board consists of five members who submit their performance to the voters every three years on a staggered basis.  How much more accountability could one want?

5. We elect capable people to the Select Board, but give them little authority.

It would be more useful, I think, to look at the Select Board, the Planning Board, and the Finance Committee as a kind of tripartite executive.  The problem, of course, is that the Planning Board is appointed (it could be elected) and the Finance Committee is a committee of town meeting.  I would support a look at the responsibilities and reciprocities among these bodies.  While the Select Board’s direct power is quite circumscribed, its symbolic authority is quite large.  So is its influence.  I think this is an appropriate state of affairs.

6. Membership in Town Meeting is restricted to those who are willing and able to spend 20 nights a year at it, causing over-representation of older, wealthier citizens.

The problem, of course, is that this is not true.  Too many members are no-shows too often.  My impression is that town meeting members are not wealthier than town voters, and if they are older it isn’t by much.  (The last charter commission compared the median age of town meeting members to the median age of Amherst residents, an inappropriate comparison since not all residents are of voting age.  An appropriate comparison would be with registered voters, but why would one bother to make it?)

7. Anyone can be a Town Meeting candidate with only his or her own signature, and in many precincts will be elected because there are more seats than candidates.

I take a modest pride having suggested this in 1994.  Prior to that time town meeting candidates had to canvas their precincts to gain ten signatures on their papers.  I like this current arrangement because it allows those who are reticent about asking their neighbors for support to run and often serve as a town meeting member.  And dare I suggest that Nick’s #7 seems to contradict his #1?

8. Town Meeting wastes a lot of time and money because many employees have to be there.

The Town Manager and Finance Director attend all sessions.  Other town employees attend when warrant articles pertaining to their work are being discussed and voted.  They are there to explain and answer questions.  How is this a waste of time and money?

9. The current system has resulted in high property taxes, a reputation for being anti-business, and a failure to provide enough housing.

Property taxes are high for many reasons, but our form of government is not one of them.  Much of the property in town is off the tax rolls.  Amherst has time and again voted to preserve open space and a consequence of that is higher taxes.  The town has voted to raise its own taxes to support the Community Preservation priorities.  

The town’s reputation for being anti-business is based upon rigorous Zoning Bylaws which are rigorously enforced by an accountable town government.  It is also the case that Amherst businesses are designed to appeal to the student population that frequents our downtown.  The town is affected by the easy access to the Hadley malls and the even easier access to online shopping.  I wish it weren’t so.  I would love a more diverse and thriving retail environment.  But to blame its disappearance on our form of government is no more correct than to blame the diversity of the 70s and 80s on our form of government.  The times they are a-changin’.

10. Amherst needs a political leader with a mandate to negotiate with UMass and the state on the town's behalf.

The town, the university and the state are all political entities, whose leaders are constrained by very similar relationships with boards and legislatures.  Would a mayor be unconstrained?  I hope not.  I am not thrilled by the thought of a strong leader although I sympathize with those in leadership positions who chafe at the constraints.

The Virtues and Annoyances of Checks and Balances

Among the comments one reads from supporters of “Amherst for All,” the group trying to collect over three thousand signatures to put a charter commission on the ballot next year, is that Amherst’s current town meeting-Select board-Town Manager form of government is inefficient and lacks accountability.  Several current and former Select Board members are among those supporters.  This is not surprising.  Indeed, their frustrations and annoyances suggest that things are working pretty well.

At the risk of sounding like an old-time civics teacher, let me suggest that when the executive and legislative branches stop being frustrated with each other that’s when we should start worrying.  In 1789, our founders were annoyed and fearful; some because the proposed executive was too much like a monarch, and some because state legislatures were deeply suspicious of the proposed new federal government.  In modern times divided government - a Democratic executive and a Republican legislature, or vice versa - sometimes led to stasis.  Today, some people are mad at the President, but everyone is mad at Congress.  But no one suggests that we should do away with Congress - not even Donald Trump.  Not yet.

In a democracy, legislatures contain and represent diverse voices and interests.  This is messy; it leads to prolonged debates, endless committee meetings, and exhaustion.  In a democracy, the executive, in its heart of hearts, would just as soon not have a democracy.  It knows what is best, it has more access to information, expert judgment, important contacts.  Or so it feels.  The founders well knew the risks of an unfettered executive; they created a bicameral legislature with the positive function of representing the people and the states, and the negative function of fettering the executive.

While not exact, the governance of the Town of Amherst mirrors this situation.  Like the federal system, town governance does a so-so job of fulfilling democracy.  In recent years, our three elected boards have gone through periods of fractious disagreement which, due to the Open Meeting Law, we can all observe.  Town Meeting can get restive as well-known voices repeat well-known arguments.  It is annoying to the Planning Board and town hall when, after they have done exhaustive work on a zoning article, some members of Town Meeting raise objections, sometimes protective of particular interests and sometimes based upon ideological differences with town government.  Since land use and zoning articles often affect some neighborhoods more than others it is natural for there to be intense debate and even hard feelings.  But imagine the feelings if Town Meeting did not provide a forum for the debate of these issues.

More often than not, Town Meeting has been an effective legislature.  Money articles usually pass after useful scrutiny.  Land use articles have a tougher time, as they should.  The requirement for a two-thirds majority on changes to the Zoning Bylaw means that zoning changes are more frequently defeated.  Town meeting consideration of zoning articles has cut to the heart of our town’s character.  It is right that people should disagree about this, and it is important that our governance provide a forum for that disagreement to express itself.  Testiness is a small price to pay for democracy.

When I first joined town meeting, the League of Women Voters gave a little pamphlet to all new members.  It explained how town meeting worked and said, among other things, that the presumption should always be in favor of the positions taken by town boards and committees.  At a certain point that admonition dropped out of the booklet, and today there are some members whose presumptions seem to run against boards and committees.  For most, though, articles and the motions made under them are considered on their own merits

Checks and balances are important at the local level as well as the national level.  I sympathize with the various parts of our executive branch that feel frustrated by town meeting.  I worry that this may be one factor that makes people reluctant to run for elected boards or serve on appointed ones.  I think we should consider seriously the suggestion that our executive is underpowered.  There might be interesting ways to deal with that without eliminating town meeting.  Later on in this series of commentaries I shall return to this issue.

In coming commentaries I shall try to make the case for town meeting and then consider some ideas for improving it.  I shall also consider the arguments against town meeting that have been raised by several highly  respected and thoughtful residents who are spearheading the drive to eliminate it.  I will also consider the pros and cons of strengthening the Select Board to make it a more effective executive.  I welcome comments, disagreements and other ideas about Amherst town government.

In 1994, Amherst’s first Charter Commission was elected. This was due to the strenuous efforts of a group of voters; they made no secret of their desire to replace Amherst’s Representative Town Meeting/Select Board/Town Manager structure with a Mayor/City Council form of governance.
In that first election, the highest vote-getter was John Eysenbach, a highly respected fiscal conservative and advocate for such a change. I was the second highest vote-getter and I ran as an avowed supporter of Town Meeting. I mention this because that split has remained throughout two subsequent efforts to change town government; on the matter of town meeting the town is pretty evenly divided.
Once again, a group of voters is undertaking the difficult task of getting 15% of Amherst’s registered voters to agree to put the question of a charter commission on the ballot. If they are successful, then all of the voters vote on whether to have a commission and who would serve on it if it is passed. This is hard work, and it is reasonable for those who undertake it to expect to have a large voice on the commission if it is established. Indeed, recent stories have indicated that this group intends to run a slate of candidates for the commission. However, any registered voter can run for the Charter Commission. In 1994, I was not part of the group that collected the signatures, but once the commission was established I felt that it was important that a vigorous voice supporting town meeting be included in its deliberations.
That mid-90s Charter Commission is instructive. It became clear to John Eysenbach that the voters wanted town meeting. It became clear to me that those opposed to town meeting had important and valid concerns and that it needed significant reforms. The Charter we proposed to the town tried to please both sides and managed to please no one. The voters rejected it quite decisively.
On two occasions since, voters have had the opportunity to vote on a charter that would replace town meeting with a city council form of government. On both occasions that charter was narrowly defeated. If the new effort to establish a commission is successful and that commission brings forth a similar proposal, there is every reason to suppose that the result, whichever way it goes, will be similarly close. The town is still divided.
If it comes into being, the challenge for a new commission will be to craft a charter that can do a better job than the 1994 commission’s proposed charter in addressing the concerns of those who both support and oppose town meeting. This will require patience, generosity and a heavy dose of political realism. The result may or may not conform to the prototypes delineated under the General Laws of the Commonwealth. Then it will be up to the voters of Amherst, who must be clear about their charge. It is not to compare the deficiencies of the present form of government to the virtues of the proposed form of government, although past charter commissions have attempted to shape the debate in that manner. Rather the voters must compare the deficiencies of what we have to the deficiencies of what is proposed. They must also be made aware of the virtues of what we have compared to the virtues of what is being presented to us. That is what a vote on a new charter must be based on.
I am still pro-town meeting, although keenly aware of its warts and blemishes. I am willing to consider and support changes in numbers, procedures and policies that will make it a more effective and efficient form of democracy. If Amherst for All would be willing to consider this approach, I would be first in line to sign their petition.