Last night Fletcher held two Special Town Meetings (School Board and Town Select Board) to discuss and vote on whether the town would adopt Australian ballot for a variety of decisions.
1. Will the budget be voted on by Australian ballot.
2. Will Officers be elected by Australian ballot.
3. Will all other public decisions be voted on by Australian Ballot (Town Meeting only)
Over 140 voters came out and voted in a 2:1 ratio to keep the Town Meeting format the way it was.
Leading up to the meeting there was a lot of good debate in the Town Newsletter. For anyone that is interested you can read the pro and con arguments at the following link:
http://www.fletchervt.net/town-meeting.html.
I was a huge supporter of keeping things the way they are. I believe it is a fair system and leads to the most well informed vote possible in our town, which has only about 25% the registered voters of Fairfax. I would argue that it is no more inconvenient today to attend Town Meeting than it was 50, 100, and even 200 years ago. Attending the town meeting requires commitment, but I believe the commitment is justified when it deals with an expenditure that costs my family thousands of dollars a year.
In looking at the Town Meeting statistics on the VT Secretary of State website, Fairfax gets between 4-6% Town Meeting attendance and 20-24% participation in the vote. Fletcher typically gets between 13-15% participation at the traditional Tuesday meeting. With a little work we can improve that significantly. Our Town Select Board seem to clearly take home a message last night that an evening meeting would be more well attended than a Tuesday meeting.
I can understand that voters in Fairfax prefer their method. I know there are many voters like Henry who went to Town Meeting before Australian ballot was the method in Fairfax, but I would argue that most voters in Fairfax have never been to a Town Meeting that utilized the traditional format. Voters in Fletcher have the power to essentially exercise a line item veto on the budget in real time through our ability to amend the budget at the meeting. I have also noticed in Fairfax that occasionally good candidates in Fairfax do not get on the ballot because they missed a filing deadline (which is 6 weeks before the meeting). Voters then have to be reminded to write-in votes for a particular candidate. I feel the format in Fletcher is more effective as candidates are nominated the day of the meeting and all the voters have the opportunity to listen to the candidates positions. In addition, through the meeting process we often get a good opportunity to learn about a candidate's style, confidence, ideas, etc... through observing their actions in the meeting. I believe the Australian ballot method would put at risk the ability for Fletcher to get and retain good candidates for our offices.
I could go on and on about this subject, but I will leave it for now. I understand many voters in Fairfax will not agree with my position (neither did 1/3 of the voters in Fletcher last night), but for now the voters in Fletcher have spoken and I am comfortable with that. I am also grateful that the residents of Fletcher had the opportunity to discuss and vote on the issue. I respect those who created the petition and created the opportunity for us to meet. I also know that this is not the last time we will have this conversation in Fletcher.
Thanks,
Todd Baumeister
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