Ballot Position Doesn’t Matter

A few items on the election to go through before we turn our attention to Town Meeting.  First, I want to pass on a surprising finding about ballot position as it relates to success in the election.  The conventional wisdom is that the higher your name appears on the ballot, the better you will do.  Some towns (like Billerica) randomly assign position on the ballot (rather than alphabetically) to make sure Mr. Abbott does not have a ballot position advantage over Mr. Zucker, for example.

But as it turns out, ballot position has no affect on the outcome of the election at all.

I plotted the ranks of the Town Meeting Representative voting results for each precinct against the position of the ballot, and it looks like this:

If there was a strong correlation, all the dots would fall nearly on a steep, upward-slanting line with a R-squared value near 1.00.  Instead, it looks like the dots were sprayed out of a shotgun and the R-squared number is less than 0.02.

So the idea that voters simply check off the first 21 names on the ballot simply isn’t true.  Furthermore, by and large voters are “bullet voting” Town Meeting Representatives.  Look at the number of votes per ballot, by precinct:

Precinct	Ballots Cast	Registered Voters	Total Votes Cast	Candidates	Write-ins Elected	Seats	Turnout	Votes per Ballot
1	240	2606	2846	24		23	9.2%	11.9
2	320	2368	3587	20	2	22	13.5%	11.2
3	241	2213	2498	17		21	10.9%	10.4
4	193	1925	1469	14		23	10.0%	7.6
5	339	2471	3773	26		21	13.7%	11.1
6	216	1850	1907	18		23	11.7%	8.8
7	194	2214	1672	14	1	21	8.8%	8.6
8	294	2552	3102	24		22	11.5%	10.6
9	196	2257	1738	16		22	8.7%	8.9
10	230	2395	1810	12		21	9.6%	7.9
11	227	2178	2120	18		21	10.4%	9.3
Totals	2690	25029	26522	203	3	240	10.7%	9.9

The average voter is filling in the oval for about half of the number of candidates.  This suggests that voters are putting some level of thought — even some rudimentary strategy — into who they are voting for in Town Meeting.  This is great news.

I realize this might not be a deep level of thought — possibly people are voting for names they know, streets they know (each candidate’s address is listed on on the ballot), or even names that sound like ethnically like their own.  But it’s better than no thought at all, and it may mean that voters have the capacity to send the best people to TM if they are given a real choice.

A few other takeaways from this chart: You can see the turnout per precinct.  It’s no surprise that the precinct with the most TMR candidates (#5), had the highest turnout (13.7%) another with a TM race (#8) came in third (11.5%) in terms of turnout.  On the other hand, the third precinct with a race (#1) drew well below the town-wide average (9.2%).

You might also assume that turnout neighborhoods in which people were running for contest higher office, such as selectman and moderator, would be better because those candidates would bring their neighbors out to the polls.  But town-wide top vote-getters Gil Moreira (#3, 10.9%), Andrew Deslaurier (#11, 10.4%), and Michael Moore (#4, 10.0%), didn’t really do that.  In fact Deslaurier came in distant third in his own TMR race.  (Even I beat him, 142 to 126, albeit in two different precincts.)

So the question remains as to why turnout numbers are so depressingly poor in Billerica.  Later this week I will compile turnout numbers for all the towns I have previously researched to see if we can find any other with a problem as severe.

A final note: Three people won by write-in, meaning that there will be 42 empty seats headed into the caucuses this Thursday.

No Mas

Town Meeting Ends Mercifully After Seven Plodding Sessions

The final night of Spring 2011 TM came at last on May 24.  Session #7 took all of 30 minutes, and the body dissolved amid a chorus of sighs.

Today I will summarize what (if anything) TM actually accomplished during this odyssey and explore some of the hidden costs of TM.

Sunken Costs

Many TMRs complain about how much things cost or about how government steals the taxpayers’ money.  These are fair complaints, but did you ever consider how much of a waste of money Town Meeting itself might be?

Divisions Building in Town Government

Session Five began slow but cordial last night, but it ended with more tension between TM and staff.  TM finally finished its time certain items, with mixed results, before moving onto approval of union contracts.

One Man’s Fix for Town Meeting’s Inefficiencies

Over the last two weeks (and, OK, the last year-and-a-half I have been a TMR), you have heard me complain at how slowly TM does its job.  And that often, votes are made without the body having all the information about the issue at hand.

Last December I offered one way to approach these problems: a new organization called a Town Meeting Representatives Association.  It would be a group of people that would be active all year round and would discuss upcoming warrant articles as well as other items of local political interest.  Long-time readers have seen my proposal already, but the blob has some new readers since then, so I’m going to bring it back now amidst our plodding, seven-session Spring 2011 Town Meeting.

Proposal for a Town Meeting Representatives Association (TMRA)

Radio Silence

Town Rebuffs Curran’s Try to Fix Water Infrastructure — Again

Last year Town Manger John Curran asked Town Meeting for permission to borrow $6M to replace all 16,000+ water meters.  TM said no.  Though the meters are years past their useful life, they wanted proof that the meters were broken.  And besides, we don’t really have to know how much water people use anyway.

So this year Curran tried to borrow a little less than half the money to do half the work: $2.8M to replace the manual meter read system with an automated, wireless radio read system (Article 28).  The system components include three radio repeaters and a transmitter installed on every meter.  The verdict?  This was a rare one I got right.  TM said no again, by a score of 100 for, 75 against (2/3 vote required, 17 votes short).

Bright Spots in TM Session Three

Would you believe it can be good news when Town Meeting takes care of only one-and-a-half warrant articles in one three-hour session?  It was.  We also saw the human side of TM during the debate, ironically, of the “chicken article” submitted by a citizen.

The Budget, Part Deux

TM breezed through 33 budget lines in 1 hour, 45 minutes.  Bottom line: all lines were approved without any changes and not one amendment was made.  Notes on a calmer, gentler second half to budget talks:

• Lightnin’ Steve Wetzel (7) picked up where he left off, asking about longevity and sick leave on the first line held.  But for the most part he was quiet after that.
• Arthur Torrey (8) was merciful and passed on all but one of the lines he held to ask about open source software.
• The school budget drew the most attention. TMRs expressed some frustration that they were not able to debate each line as they can for the town budget.  But, those are the rules.  The best question of the night was asked by John Piscatelli (4).  He wanted to know what we risk if we spend $2M less than the school requested.  Dr. Serio revealed that some class sizes would increase.  Piscatelli followed up and asked how much it would cost to keep class sizes the same, and the answer was about $200,000.

Article 46… (Resist the Pun)

TM passed the “chicken article” by  a wide margin, 134-24 (85%!).  It is now legal to keep up to 6 hens (no roosters) in Billerica.

Credit goes to the petitioner, citizen Jen Croce.  She worked for a year on the project, making sure the article language was perfect, or at least perfect enough.  Her presentation was brief and very professional — certainly well-rehearsed.

Most TMRs appreciated the effort, but others would accept nothing but perfection.  Arthur Torrey (8) noted that turkeys and ostriches (really!) are also hens and so those animals would not be explicitly excluded.  There were two minor amendments to get it closer to perfect.  Both were accepted.  Bob Casey (1) asked what happens to families that already have more than 6 hens or a rooster.

None of this or the hour of debate flustered Ms. Croce, who calmly and competently answered each of the questions asked on the floor.  She was also very honest.  When asked why the limit was 6 and not 12 hens, she said, “I thought it would be easier to pass.”  I think TM appreciated her candor.  The Moderator, Town Counsel, Selectmen, and Finance Committee members alternately whispered in her ear throughout the debate.  It’s a lot for a newcomer to TM to take in, but she never lost her composure.

In short, she was great.  It was one of the few examples of true leadership you will see in this Town Meeting.  This was evidenced by no one saying on record, “I wouldn’t want chickens next door to me,” a lazy throwaway line that would have sounded silly after Croce’s meticulous preparation.

The room got so warm and fuzzy that at one point Rep. Musker (8) made a point of order to apologize to Ms. Croce for all the questions and for how long it was taking.  (The Moderator shooshed her, but the sentiment was expressed.)

So my hat is off to Jen Croce. I wish Town Meeting had 100 like her.

Session Three Grinds on Tonight

Spring 2011 Town Meeting continues Tuesday night.  Here are a couple of items to get you caught up.

First I want to pass along the time certain articles, which I should have done last week.  Time certain items are articles that have been “guaranteed” to be on the agenda on a certain date regardless of where they appear in the warrant.  I put “guaranteed” in quotes because when TM drags its feet on other matters (see Session Two), time certain isn’t so certain.  But here’s what TM approved last Tuesday:

• Articles 9 through 21 shall be the last order of business.  (These are all union contract placeholders that have no contract to vote on, so they will all be dismissed at that time.)
• On 5/10, Article 28 (Water meter radio read) shall be the first order of business
• On 5/10, Article 46 (Keeping of hens) shall be the second order of business
• On 5/12 the order shall be:

1. Article 32 (Fox Hill wireless tower)
2. Article 42 (Wireless tower zoning language change)
3. Article 43 (Day care center zoning language change)
4. Article 44 (Solar power zoning change)
5. Article 45 (Anti-giant garage and addition zoning change)

• On 5/17, the order shall be:

1. Article 29 (E Ink certified project)
2. Article 30 (PAREXEL certified project)

Notes:

• Not sure if we have to finish the budget (Article 4) tonight before we get to the keeping of hens.  Let’s hope for the sake of the citizen petitioner (Jen Croce) that she does not have to sit though an entire evening of budget nonsense before she gets to make her presentation.  In fact if we have to close out the budget first, we might not even have time left for her article.
• If we don’t get to the 5/10 articles tonight, do the 5/12 articles get bumped on 5/12?
• If TM is this grumpy about the budget and no line reductions pass, the water meter radio read (28) has no chance.

Cleaning up the Rest of the Budget

Of the 49 budget lines held, we only got to 16 of them last Thursday.  This leaves 33 more to go.  Here’s how they break down:

• Rep. Torrey held 8 lines.  A proponent of open source software, he will ask (as he did several times Thursday) eight more times if department heads are downloading free software instead of buying it.  (As police Chief Dan Rosa said when asked this question, “You get what you pay for.”)
• Rep. Johnson held 5 lines.
• Rep. Ramos held 2.
• Several lines were held by people who I didn’t see because they did not stand as the Moderator requested.

Can we plow through 33 budget lines and 2 time certain articles in one night?  My money says no, especially if Lighnin’ Steve Wetzel inspired any other TMRs with his show in Session Two.

Catch all the action live on BATV tonight!

Fireworks and Frustration at Town Meeting

I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.  For nearly three hours.

Last Thursday Spring 2011 Town Meeting’s Session #2 spent all night talking about less than half of the held budget lines.  And although we ran though multiple departments’ budgets, the questions were always the same.

The theme of the night was two somewhat obscure benefits received by many town employees: sick incentive and longevity.  Our guide on this path to micromanagieral insanity was Representative Steve Wetzel of Precinct 7.

Mr Wetzel has a problem with these two small components of town employee’s salaries.  They are components that not all employees receive and they are earned only when they have excellent attendance or for years of loyalty to the town.

Before we get to Mr. Wetzel’s one-man filibuster, here is what we are talking about:

Sick Incentive

If an employee does not call in sick for a sustained period of time (details were not provided), that employee gets paid $500 or $600, depending on the union.

Longevity

When an employees passes certain milestones in their career with the town, they receive a one-time longevity payment, according to the following schedule:

•  5 years of service, $784
• 10 years, $1827
• 15 years, $2610
• 20 years, $3393
• 30 years, $3500
• 35 years, $3800

Fred Libatore (6) asked the question, what’s the total amount of the sick incentive and longevity benefits?  Staff did not have that answer on hand because even the Town Accountant couldn’t add it up for all 585 town employees fast enough.  But some rough math came up with a number in the neighborhood of $3M, or around 2.5%.  So for what it’s worth, that is real money.

Now, before I go on, I want to make it clear that I don’t have a problem with Mr. Wetzel questioning these benefits.  That’s the taxpayer’s job is to question if he or she is being governed or taxed fairly.  And it’s especially a TMR’s job.

My problem, however, is the manor and arena in which he chose to raise this question and his insistence that the answers we was being given by staff (and other TMRs) were inadequate.  Moreover, he hijacked Session #2, monopolizing air time and repeating his point over and over and over again.  He refused to be satisfied until TM voted to erase every dollar of sick incentive and longevity pay from the rolls.

Here are some highlights from the Steve Wetzel Show:

• Spoke a total of 10 times at the microphone.  Last Spring the highest number of “participations” was 13 by three TMRs.  Mr. Wetzel spoke 8 times over all 5 nights in 2010.
• Asked the same question (how many people under a union contract?) for every department a he held a budget.
• Had staff, the Moderator, the Town Clerk, and Town Counsel scrambling for chapter and verse of the personnel bylaw and other documents while TM sat and waited for minutes at a time.  By the way, credit Michael Moore of the Finance Committee for adeptly finding digital copies and displaying the sections requested by Mr. Wetzel on the PowerPoint so everyone could see.  Mr. Wetzel proceeded to read the publicly-available document at the microphone while the rest of us waited, hoping to catch staff in a “gotcha” moment.
• By the 7th or 8th time at the microphone, he was clearly winging it, making up questions to buy more face time.
• Vaguely accused staff of acting in their own self-interest (see the quote in the Lowell Sun story by Evan Lips).  Town Manager John Curran “took exception” to that comment.
• Said curtly into to microphone, “That’s not appropriate!” to someone on the Finance Committee while making angry statements about the Quinn Bill.  I was sitting about 5 rows from FinCom and I did not hear the comment that prompted this outburst.
• Became visibly emotional and agitated at the microphone as the show went on.  Also said several times, “This is a great discussion we are having,” to which TMRs in the audience audibly groaned after hearing it 5 or 6 times.

Mr. Wetzel made two motions:

• To cut the longevity benefit from the Town Accountant’s salary.  The timing of this motion was bizarre.  Paul Watson, the Accountant, had been frantically fetching information to answer questions Mr. Wetzel asked about other departments.  When he needed to defend his own department’s budget, Mr. Watson was standing alone at the podium not 20 feet away from him when Mr. Wetzel looked him in the face and moved to cut over $1800 from his pay.  Mr. Watson has a good poker face, but I can only imagine the, er, unhappy feelings has was having at that time.  How emasculating for him.  Other TMRs (led by Bernie Duggan (5)) said it was unfair to pick on one person in this way.  The motion failed.
• To refer the matter to a committee that doesn’t exist.  He proposed to make a brand new committee.  It would have 13 members — one TMR chosen by caucus from each precinct plus one Selectman and a Town Manager designee.  Town Counsel said the committee would be an advisory committee only and therefore would have no power.  I was thinking that there is already a committee for these sort of things, and Michael Moore got up and said it for me.  That includes his own group (the FinCom), the personnel committee, and the BOS.  This motion failed, too.

And now some of my favorite ironies from this pointless exercise:

• So wait, I’m confused.  I thought the stereotype of lazy government workers is that they bang in sick all the time even when they are healthy, and now we are upset that they are not calling in sick?  Which is it?
• The entire discussion was moot because these benefits are embedded inside negotiated union contracts, a tiny piece of which cannot be undone by a vote of Town Meeting.  Contracts that were approved by: you guessed it, Steve Wetzel and the rest of Town Meeting several years prior.  As Madeline Sargent (5) said, we promised to pay this money, and now we are obligated to pay it.
• There would be no conceivable way to populate a new 13-member committee (see below).

If you are smacking your forehead in frustration now and you’re asking why the Moderator didn’t put a stop to this madness, here’s why: he can’t.  Any TMR has the right to approach the microphone as many times as he wants and to ask any question or make any short comment he wants.  That is his right.  I could pull all 240+ budget lines next year and tell the same knock-knock joke at the microphone each time.  (That would make only a slightly bigger mockery of the proceedings than the Steve Wetzel Show.)

I am glad that Mr. Wetzel is thinking about these things.  Hey, the guy might save us $3M some day!  But TM is not the place to get this done.  It isn’t a brainstorming session.  Instead, he should have spend an afternoon at the library, a night a FinCom meeting, or 30 minutes on the phone with the Town Manager collecting facts before storming completely unprepared into Session #2.

This would have saved us 3 hours of wasted debate time.

The Committee to Form Committees Committee

Bob Casey (1) told TM about a sign on the student government office door when he was in school: “I was naked and hungry and you formed a committee.”  Voters routinely snipe at government, red tape, bureaucracy, and the like.  And here we have a citizen — Mr. Wetzel — who wants to do what many criticize government for: form another committee.

Why don’t we concentrate on the committees we already have?

Let’s start by trying to come up with some people who may want to serve on those committees.  According to a legal ad in the May 5 edition of the Minuteman, there are some vacancies.  OK, that’s an understatement.  There are a show-stopping 118 empty seats on about 3 dozen committees.  (Two of these committees had the number listed as “several,” so the actual number is even higher.)  That includes openings on some important ones, like the Finance Committee (4 plus one alternate), the Conservation Committee (2) and the ZBA (2 plus one alternate).

We need fewer committees, not more.  We just had an election with 13% turnout.  If people won’t even vote, how are we going to lure them into trading a free evening for sitting in a meeting once a month?

Which brings me to my final point.  Those of us who are not retired yet and and may have children at home do not have a lot of time outside work to just give away.  I have complained in the past that  younger people simply do not participate at Town Meeting (the median age for TMRs is 55 and their most common profession is “retired’).  After witnessing the Steve Wetzel Show, can you blame them?  When the town’s most important governing body spends an entire night having moot arguments on live TV, what fool would watch that and think that’s worth his or her scarce free time?

In Town Meeting is going to survive, we need smart-phone toting young people to replace the “civic generation” when they go.  And right now that is not happening.  TM has to be more efficient, or the YouTube generation is going to completely tune out.

Spring 2011 Town Meeting Preview

Town Meeting begins Tuesday night at 7:30.  There are 46 articles on the warrant.  Here are the articles I believe will draw some extra debate time and, possibly, many annoying amendments.

The Budget — Article 4

I am a big picture guy, so let’s fast forward to the bottom line.  We will be presented a budget of $125.4M.  Last’s year’s was $123.5M.  This represents an increase of about 1.5%.  I can think of a lot of things that have increased in cost compared to last year by more than 1.5% (gasoline, anyone?), so I won’t quibble with the total number.  The only line I have a question on is $125,000 allocated for “Equipment/Capital Improvement Plan.”  I don’t know what this is for. I have asked the Town Manager this question; once I get the answer I will share it with you.

Collective Bargaining — Articles 5, 6, and 7

We have a few contracts to consider this year (there were none last year).  The firefighters, civilian fire alarm operators, and administrative unit are set to get minor increases.  The bumps are small ($70k, $6k, and $30k), so I hope there is little discussion on these.  But since they are unions, there will always be at least a few TMRs who have a problem.

By the way, there are also TMRs who resent town employees serving on TM.  The solution to that is to have non-employees run against them for their seats, but that’s another post for another day.

Fire Trucks — Article 27

Two trucks, $2 million.  One ladder (1989) and one pump (1985) are old and need to be replaced.

I dislike articles like this because they always draw unnecessary debate.  You’ll have people get up and give all kind of ways that we can magically spend less money and get more out of the trucks we have.  Often they do it to show off how much they know about fire trucks.  But this is a basic engineering econ problem — when an asset costs you more annually to maintain than to replace, you replace the asset.

Water Meter Radio Read — Article 28

You may remember that TM unceremoniously stuffed the Town Manager last year when he tried to borrow money to replace the town’s water meters, many of which are no longer metering water.  This time he wants $2.8M to build a radio read system that will collect meter data without driving around town in a minivan.

I don’t know if he will ask TM to fix the meters again.  I asked and we’ll see what he says.

Certified Projects –Articles 29 and 30

In short, a Certified Project is a company that agrees to open up shop in town in exchange for some tax breaks.  TM has supported these in the past, but we’ll see if this changes now that some big-time slimeball companies have skipped out of Mass this year, taking jobs and the tax money with them.

Cemetery Cell Tower — Article 32

The Cemetery has submitted this article seeking to give some land in the Fox Hill Cemetery on Rangeway Road in North Billerica to the Selectman so that a cell tower can get built there.

I received a letter signed by 7 abutters asking me to vote no on this article.  They argue that they bought their properties assuming that the cemetery would always be one.  That’s a reasonable assumption, and I support the neighborhood.  Don’t know what the benefit to the town is of dropping a cell tower on the neighborhood is (aside from better phone service), although I assume it’s money.

Pawn Shops — Article 40

This one would establish a license requirement for anyone wishing to open up a pawn shop in town.  The Police Chief says he needs it to make it easier for him to recover stolen property.

Okay, but reading this article, it looks so strict, I don’t know why anyone would want to operate a pawn shop here.  Or maybe that’s the whole idea. Who knows.  I hope it will all become clear in the presentation.

Giant Garages — Article 45

Believe it or not, this is an anti-McMansion article.  Wha?  Billerica cares what it looks like?

Anyway, it seeks to limit the size and placement of additions or garages to existing houses.  It forbids the addition from

Snout House

being closer to the street than the house, also called a “snout house.”

I am conflicted on this one because while I am a harsh critic of McMansions and other oversized residences — especially when they don’t fit into the neighborhood — I don’t think making big garages illegal is the answer.

Besides, there are dozens of people in Billerica who run their businesses out of their garage (or at least store the business vehicles in it).  Abutters should be able to comment on the size of new structures on their neighbor’s property, and I am checking to make sure they have those rights even without this article.  I am leaning toward not supporting the article.

However, I am still strongly in favor of reasonably-sized houses.

The Chicken Article — Article 46

Very simply, the petitioner — citizen Jen Croce — wants hens to be legal in Billerica.  She wrote a letter to TMRs explaining her position.  My hat is off to her.  She has taken initiative to wade through the tedious and monumentally unfriendly article filing and vetting process.  Her argument is well reasoned and lucid.

As a TMR I am interested in connecting citizen taxpayers with what they want as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.  And I don’t see a half dozen hens (roosters are prohibited) quietly making free and healthy eggs as causing any problem.  I wish Ms. Croce luck and I will be voting yes.  Run, chicken, run.

Town Meeting Representatives Association — A Proposal

This comment came in last week from Doug Fogerty:

Town Meeting Representatives Association sounds like a great idea. Any way to get the work out and to foster intelligent discussion before Town Meeting a great idea. I’m not sure how the Open Meeting laws would like this…. Coming to Town Meeting prepared to discuss an article is so important to a smoothly run Town Meeting. Lets keep the 9 page amendments to a minimum.

It’s time that I organize all of my thoughts on the idea of a Billerica Town Meeting Representatives Association (TMRA) into a formal draft proposal.  We can use this forum to develop the idea.  Such an association already exists in other towns with representative town meeting, such as Brookline, so we have models to emulate.

So without any more delay, here is my description of why a TMRA is needed, what it would do, and how it would work.

Introduction

Town meeting is the oldest form of government in America.  Some political scientists call it the purest form of government, one in which all interested parties can debate and vote face-to-face. But with accelerating technology and dwindling citizen interest in participating in government, is town meeting still relevant or, indeed, still the best form of democracy in the 21st century?  It can be, as long as it grows along with the needs and capabilities of its people.

Billerica uses a modified version, the representative town meeting.  Like open town meeting, it meets twice a year, but its members are elected — 15 each in 11 precincts.  Representatives are elected each April for a term of 3 years.  While their constituents are free to contact them, a list of only their names and addresses is published.

Billerica’s Town Meeting has little interaction with staff at town hall, other elected boards or commissions, or its constituents.  By and large, TM acts very much independently.  Its actions are only as good as the information individual representatives receive or seek out for themselves, which, relative to other elected people, is very little.

Statement of the Problem

While all legislative bodies are inefficient to some degree, making the most of time available is critical when such a body meets only twice a year.  Additionally, citizen interest in serving in TM (and in town government in general) is lagging and all indications are that it is getting worse.

Specific points:

• Lack of interest.  Some precincts have empty seats, and a few have several.  If a precinct’s 15 seats are not all occupied after the April election, they can be filled by caucus and without an open election.  If seats remain empty, that precinct is underrepresented.
• Lack of continuity.  In between the spring and fall meetings, the body dissolves and has no real function.  Town Meeting Representatives (TMRs) have no real governmental role during this time.  While items of political interest persist during the year and are debated and voted on continuously by other boards and commissions, the 240 TMRs are idle.  Updates on these items of interest must come from local media outlets, which are few.
• Lack of connection between TM and its constituency.  While the list of TMRs is available, there is no accepted way for citizens to contact their representatives.  TMRs are not required to have a telephone, and although most do, unlisted numbers are common.  (Further, the age of the land line may soon be over.)  The average TMR represents 1100 citizens, and without contact from them, TM cannot know what the will of the people in their precinct is.
• Younger people are not represented.  The median age of a TMR is 55 and “retired” is the most common occupation.  Younger citizens, including those with children in the school system, choose not to run for TM.  There is a generation gap at play — research indicates that older people are much more likely to participate in government.  A shortage of free time is a factor as well.  To date few parents have been willing to give 8-10 weeknights a year to attended TM.
• Lack of information.  TMRs are not even sent the warrant anymore.  They are asked to download the warrant from the web site or pick it up at town hall, presumably to save printing and mailing costs.  Once attained, TMRs will find that the publication includes only the warrant — the official “legalese” for each article — and nothing else.  There are no supporting facts, summaries, recommendations, pro and con positions, or any other support material.  Often, some of this material will be available on the front table as the TMRs check in on for the first session, with little time to review it or confer with staff or fellow TMRs.
• Too much repeat information.  The Town Manager often finds himself answering the same question multiple times at the podium because TMRs either forget the answer or they weren’t paying attention (or were absent) the first time it was answered.  You can hear the eyes rolling in the auditorium when TMRs ask these repeat questions at the microphone.
• Incorrect information.  TMRs often have facts that are distorted or outright untrue.  Rumor must suffice absent accurate information.  Many TMRs continue to believe erroneous information even when the truth is revealed.
• Lack of cooperation among TMRs.  Members of legislative bodies around the country work together to draft and edit bills and to lobby support.  Billerica TM has no such mechanism.  There is no way to “take the temperature” of TM with regard to a new idea.
• Lack of cooperation with staff and other elected people.  Both the Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee discuss and vote to recommend (or not recommend) each article, but a vast majority of TMRs are not party to these discussions.  The FinCom meetings are not even carried on BATV.  TMRs generally don’t see the draft warrant, and when a TMR wants to amend an article’s language, it’s usually too late.  This is why so many amendments are made on the floor, costing TM tremendous amounts of time.  Articles submitted by other boards (such as the Planning Board) receive yet another hearing, but those are not well advertised and are rarely attended by TMRs.
• Lack of support.  Citizens who submit articles are on their own.  They get no help from anyone.  Even TMRs who submit articles have little support outside of the people who signed it.  This helps explains why articles submitted by individuals have fared so poorly.  Citizens who wish to participate in this manner should be encouraged — not scared away — and should receive full support.
• Distrust of government.  There is a palpable and unfortunate undercurrent of distrust of staff and/or other elected people by some TMRs.  TM cannot function properly if there is not trust among our branches of government.
• Poor voter turnout for local elections.  The April elections (selectmen, TMRs, PB, school committee, etc.) generally draw between 10% and 20% of those registered.  Small turnout means less scrutiny of those running and less competition.  We need competition and scrutiny for better quality of government.

Purpose

The Billerica TMRA would seek to address the problems listed above.  Specifically, it would provide:

• Information storage.  The TMRA would collect and make available any information of interest to TMRs.  This material would be fact, not opinion.  With the information available in one place, it would be up to TMRs to form their own opinions.
• Information gathering.  TMRA members would seek out information and ask authorities and experts for the answers.  Members would acquire reports, letters, plans, minutes, and any other useful material and make it available to TMRs.
• Cooperation with staff.  TMRA could serve as a sounding board for articles that the Town Manager and his staff are interested in bringing to TM.  If there is general support, TMRA members could help edit the article language with staff.
• Cooperation with other elected people.  When selectmen, the Planning Board, or other boards and commissions have articles they want to bring to TM, they could engage the TMRA first.  Interested TMRA members could then be involved with the development of the language of the article.
• Notification.  Although events such as meetings are legally posted in the newspaper and town hall, TMRs do not often see them.  The TMRA would be an excellent place to distribute such notices.
• Connection to constituents.  TMRA would continually find ways to interact with citizens.  It would ask for opinions of the residents and business community alike.  TMRA would inform the public about TM’s activities and possibly all important government activity.
• Support.  Individuals who wish to actively participate in TM — especially those submitting articles for the warrant — would receive full support from TMRA.  New TMRs could be formally mentored by those who have more experience.
• Outreach and advocacy.  TMRA could help to improve interest in TM in particular and all of local government in general.  It would reinforce the importance of local government in the everyday lives of Billerica citizens.  It might also encourage those interested to run for TM seats.  It could have an official presence at town-wide events such as Yankee Doodle Homecoming.  Members could volunteer in the community.

Organization

As the Billerica TMRA grows, it’s form would evolve.  It’s structure would be built as follows:

1. An e-mail list.  The TMRA would begin as a simple list of TMRs compiled by members.  It would be made available to staff, other elected people, and citizens alike.  A TMRA member would maintain the list and keep it updated.  (While it is true that not all people have an e-mail address, most do.  Further, internet access is provided at the public library and several services provide e-mail accounts for free.  For members who wish to be contacted instead by telephone, a phone number will be provided instead.)
2. An internet discussion bulletin board.  This group would serve not only as a forum for debate and discussion, it would also serve as storage for any electronic files.  The group would be organized into “threads,” one for each issue or subject.  The group would be moderated by volunteers.  Strict rules about decency would be written and enforced by moderators.  Since it would be available all the time, people working full-time could access it at convenient times.
3. In-person meetings.  The TMRA might have materials to review in person, such as large design plans, that are difficult to read on a computer screen.  Additionally the group may want to plan the future of the organization in person.  Outreach and volunteer efforts might be better put together in person.
4. Non-profit organization.  TMRA could file to be a non-profit organization in order to raise and spend money.

Membership

Membership in the Billerica TMRA would be open to anyone.  Although most members would probably be TMRs, all citizens and businesspeople would be able to join.

Open Meeting Law

The open meeting law is changing along with the explosion of the internet.  Whether the law covers electronic communication and social media is a subject of debate.  However, as far as the creation and existence of a Town Meeting Representatives Association is concerned, no law prohibits citizens from the freedom to assemble.

My understanding of the open meeting law is that so long as there is no quorum, there is no Town Meeting, and therefore a TMRA meeting would simply be a group of citizens who have assembled.  No votes or other official activity is taking place.

However, my layperson’s interpretation of the law may be incorrect.  We would need consult with the Town Clerk, Town Counsel, and of course the Town Manager before proceeding.

Conclusion

I envision the TMRA as a group of people interested in keeping representative town meeting a strong and viable institution in Billerica.  There are already a number of individual TMRs who have strong positive feelings about it.  The TMRA would be a place where TMRs (and other citizens) can get together and have healthy adult discussions about issues that are important to us.  It would be a dignified group free of rumor and innuendo.  While it is difficult (if not impossible) to divorce emotion from politics, the TMRA would do its best.  It would be a place of diverse perspectives and opinions, but it would be safe to see things differently than other members.