Town meeting
This form is distinct from town hall meetings held by elected officials to communicate with their constituents, which have no decision-making power.
Town meetings have been practiced in the U.S. region of New England since colonial times and in some western states since at least the late 19th century.
One interpretation is that it was adapted from local vestry meetings held in 17th century England that were responsible for financial decisions of the parish church.
Since the turn of the nineteenth century, political scientists have characterized New England's town meetings as notable examples of direct democracy.
[6] Tocqueville believed that town meetings, with direct power given to attending residents, trained citizens for participation in broader democratic society.
[6] Town meetings also influenced American republican thought particularly for Thomas Jefferson, who believed they were "the perfect exercise of self-government and for its preservation".
[7] Town meetings represent some of the only modern institutions, apart from some townships in Minnesota and the cantons of Switzerland, in which everyday citizens can regularly participate in "face-to-face" assemblies that deliberate binding collective action decisions in the form of laws.
[5][8][9] Proponents of communitarianism and civic republicanism in political thought, notably Frank M. Bryan of the University of Vermont, have advocated town meetings as forms of direct democracy based upon unitary values.
[2] Both camps, however, note the difficulties of maintaining the benefits of town meetings when the format is scaled to larger groups.
Other political scientists have expressed more skepticism toward town meetings on the basis of their poor attendance and lack of representativeness.
The manager's duties include acting as purchasing agent, seeing that laws and ordinances are enforced, making appointments and removals, and fixing the compensation of appointees.
[a] In 1692, the Great and General Court declared that final authority on bylaws rested with town meetings and not selectmen.
[clarification needed][23] While in many respects Massachusetts society resembled England, the franchise was more widespread in the colony than it was in the mother country, as were the powers of local elected officials.
[26] The select board summons the town meeting into existence by issuing the warrant, which is the list of items—known as articles—to be voted on, with descriptions of each article.
Any town meeting or adjournment thereof must have its time and place published with three days' notice, along with the warrant specifying each issue to be decided.
In 1991, the state enacted RSA 40:10, giving town meeting members the right to bar reconsideration of a specified vote (or any "action...which involves the same subject matter").
If a town meeting does not bar reconsideration and later does vote to reconsider a decision, the issue can be taken up only at an adjourned session at least one week later.
To adopt SB 2, or to revert to traditional town meetings, a question to that effect on the municipal ballot must win a three-fifths majority.
This format was instituted by the state legislature in 1995 because of concerns that modern lifestyles had made it difficult for people to attend traditional town meetings.
Deliberative sessions have been charged with "sabotaging" the intent of a ballot question; for example, changing a warrant article, "To see if the Town will raise and appropriate (amount) for (purpose)" to merely read, "To see."
In 2016, petitioners in Exeter submitted an article to place on the ballot an advisory "vote of no confidence" in a school official, and the deliberative session removed the word "no".
[32] The second session, held on a set election day, is when issues such as the town's budget and other measures, known as warrant articles, are voted upon.
The moderator presides over town meetings, regulates their business, prescribes rules of procedure, decides questions of order, and declares the outcome of each vote.
[33] In 2019, the NH General Court passed, and the Governor signed, SB 104, which created a procedure to postpone elections.
It empowers the Town moderator, based on National Weather Service reports and after consultations with other officials and the Secretary of State, to postpone elections.
They were typically held between February 1 and May 1 of each year primarily for the election of town officials but were also empowered to set "rules for fences and for impounding animals", supporting the poor, raising taxes, and to "determine any other question lawfully submitted to them".
[39] The purpose of town meeting is to elect municipal officers, approve annual budgets and conduct any other business.
Vermont "law also gives a private employee the right to take unpaid leave from work to attend his or her annual town meeting, subject to the essential operation of the business or government.
[44] Some small municipalities of Spain operate under a town meeting system called a Concejo abierto ("open council") that dates from the middle ages.
[45] The best-known example of the Spanish town meeting system of government was found in the Middle Ages in the Basque Country of northern Spain.
