Talk:Town meeting

Subsection title

I'm not sure the subsection "Communities still using town meetings" is useful here. All Massachusetts towns, by definition, have Town Meeting. If they don't have Town Meeting, then they're cities, not towns. Note that some Massachusetts cities call themselves "Town", as for example what the General Court calls "the city called the Town of Watertown". 18.26.0.18 04:55, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good point - it has grown out of control, hasn't it? Why not write up what you just said into article form, and replace the list of Mass. towns with it? - DavidWBrooks 12:31, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Town with Council"

Please provide a citation for this alleged "Town with Council" form that demonstrates these places are actually towns and not cities. 18.26.0.18 17:23, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

• Weymouth, for one, which has a Mayor-Town Council form of government, although they also continue to practice Town Meeting. This is their choice, and they could have excluded Town Meeting when writing their charter if they had wanted. Remember, a town remains a town until it chooses to incorporate as a city. The commonwealth may call it the City known as the Town of X, but it remains legally the Town of X until it reincorporates, and standard practice in Massachusetts also dictates that, if the people of Boston were to vote tomorrow that Boston is a town and not a city, a town it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sahasrahla (talk • contribs) 20:01, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

That's not my understanding. Municipal governments are entirely creatures of the state; if the laws of the Commonwealth say it is a city, then it is a city, end of discussion. It doesn't matter what the community wants to be called. In particular, if it has a mayor, then it is a city, because that form of government is exclusive to cities. Again, please provide a citation. (I did some of my own research on this issue, and found that in the case of Weymouth, the General Court sometimes says "town of Weymouth" and sometimes says "city known as the town of Weymouth".) Here's what the Constitution says:

Subject to the foregoing requirements, the general court may provide optional plans of city or town organization and government under which an optional plan may be adopted or abandoned by majority vote of the voters of the city or town voting thereon at a city or town election; provided, that no town of fewer than twelve thousand inhabitants may be authorized to adopt a city form of government, and no town of fewer than six thousand inhabitants may be authorized to adopt a form of town government providing for town meeting limited to such inhabitants of the town as may be elected to meet, deliberate, act and vote in the exercise of the corporate powers of the town.

This section shall apply to every city and town whether or not it has adopted a charter pursuant to section three.

This is from the revised version of amendment 2, section 8, contained in the 89th amendment to the Massachusetts constitution. Although it is nowhere spelled out explicitly, it is clear from this passage and others that the Constitution considers there to be a "city form of government" and a "town form of government", with the latter having some form of Town Meeting and the former not required to do so, regardless of what the community, in its charter, may choose to call itself or its governing bodies. By that principle, the Town of Weymouth, like the Town of Watertown, is a city. I will update the article to reflect this. 18.26.0.18 04:41, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

According to their Charter, Weymouth (http://www.weymouth.ma.us/council/charter.pdf) uses a Town Council as their legislative body. Prior to voting on their budget, the Council holds a public hearing (in town meeting style). That is substantively different than a Town Meeting in the legislative sense (where voters, or 240 representatives) vote on the budget. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.77.32.9 (talk) 19:23, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Ten voters?

This has got to be a typo:

or by a petition signed by at least ten registered voters of the town.

Shouldn't this be "100 or ten percent of registered voters, whichever is lower"? Thought I'd ask here, just in case I'm wrong :) Bcordes 16:14, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

10 voters for the annual town meeting, 100 voters for the special town meeting. Source: state web site.--AaronS 16:38, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

noted, and fixed in "special town meeting" as well. Bcordes 20:21, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

The petition for a Special Town Meeting requires 200 signatures or 20%, whichever is lower. The quorum is only 100. It's a little weird. Sahasrahla 23:43, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Checking the Census data, there are only 30 towns with population less than 1000 (for which the alternative would make a difference), mostly in Western Mass. Three towns have fewer than 200 people: Gosnold, Monroe, and Mount Washington. (Gosnold is the smallest, with only 86 inhabitants in the 2000 Census.) 18.26.0.18 01:13, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Massachusetts intro city vs. town

The introductory paragraph for the Massachusetts section is no introduction, and probably should be at the end of the discussion about open and representative town meetings. The article is about town meetings first, and subsidiarily, the finer points of cities and towns in Massachusetts should go last. -- Yellowdesk 05:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The whole point is that towns, and only towns, have Town Meeting. Cities by definition do not. Perhaps it could be worded better. 121a0012 16:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

That point is understood. Here is my point, the constitutional quibbling about the cities that call themselves towns is a borderline case, and footnote to the larger discussion about town meeting. Here it's moved to the bottom. Comments invited. -- Yellowdesk 01:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Massachusetts

Two forms of Town Meeting government

File:Freetown Warrant FY2004.gif

A page from the May 3, 2004 Freetown, Mass. annual town meeting warrant.

Open Town Meeting

Main article: Open Town Meeting

In Massachusettts, towns with fewer than 6,000 residents may only adopt an open town meeting' town charter and form of government. Massachusetts towns with 6,000 or more residents may optionally adopt a representative town meeting form of government. The Board of Selectmen 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. The Moderator officiates the meeting by reading each article, explaining it, and making sure the rules of parliamentary procedure are followed, interprets voice votes and counts other votes. The Finance Committee or Ways and Means Committee makes recommendations on articles dealing with money, and often drafts the proposed budget. The Town Clerk serves as the clerk of the meeting by recording its results. Town Counsel makes legal recommendations on all articles of the warrant, to ensure town meeting is acting lawfully. All registered voters are free to attend and vote on any and all articles.

Representative Town Meeting

Main article: Representative Town Meeting

Massachusetts Towns having at least 6,000 residents may adopt a Representative Town Meeting system through the normal charter-change process. Representative Town Meetings function largely the same as an Open Town Meeting, except that not all registered voters can vote. The townspeople instead elect Town Meeting Members by precinct to represent them and to vote on the issues for them, much like a U.S. Representative votes on behalf of his/her constituents in Congress. Depending on population, a town may have anywhere from 45 to 240 Town Meeting Members. Framingham, the largest town in the state by population, has 216 representatives in Town Meeting, twelve from each precinct.

Annual Town Meetings

Annual Town Meetings are held in the spring, and may also be known as the Annual Budget Meeting. They are supposed be held between February 1 and May 31, but may be delayed until June 30. (Town fiscal years start on July 1.) At this meeting, the town takes care of any housecleaning it has left before the end of the current fiscal year, and prepares itself to enter the new fiscal year by approving a budget. It may also vote on non-budgetary issues on the warrant, including the town's general and zoning bylaws.

An article may be placed on the warrant by the Selectmen, sometimes at the request of town departments, or by a petition signed by at least ten registered voters of the town.

Special Town Meetings

Special Town Meetings are held whenever necessary, usually to deal with financial or other pertinent issues that develop between Annual Town Meetings. They function the same as an Annual Town Meeting, only the number of signatures required on a petition rises to 100. While the Selectmen generally call such a meeting, voters may call one through petition, and the number of signatures required on a petition to call a Special Town Meeting is 200 or 20% of the registered voters, whichever number is lower. The Selectmen have 45 days from the date of receiving such a petition to hold a Special Town Meeting.

Joint/Regional Town Meetings

Joint Town Meetings are an extremely rare form of town meeting. When two or more towns share an operating budget for something, the governing body of that entity will typically issue each town an assessment for its operation. The town then includes its assessment as part of its budget.

If Town Meeting in one town votes to approve its assessment based on the figures provided, and Town Meeting in another town votes a lesser figure than it was assessed, the disagreement becomes problematic. (For example, if X-town and Y-town run a high school together, and the total operating cost of the high school is $4,500,000, and X-town sends 51% of the school's students, X-town would be assessed $2,295,000 and Y-town would be assessed $2,205,000. An issue arises when X-town votes $2,295,000 and Y-town only votes $2,100,000.)

If the issue cannot be resolved, the governing body may call a meeting of all registered voters from all towns involved: a Joint Town Meeting. The action of the Joint Town Meeting is binding for all involved communities. When three or more towns are involved, the name often changes from Joint Town Meeting to Regional Town Meeting.

Towns and Cities in Massachusettts and the the state constitution

The Massachusetts Constitution (in Amendment LXXXIX, which governs the respective powers of municipalities and the state legislature) makes a distinction between a "city form of government" and a "town form of government". In recent years, a number of communities have chosen to adopt a home-rule charter under this Amendment which specifies a city form of government while keeping the style "Town of X," calling their legislative bodies "Town Council," and so on. (The Constitution does not require any specific nomenclature.) In special legislation, these places are sometimes described as "the city known as the town of X".

The Town Meeting form of government is a mandatory part of being considered a town under state law; cities do not have town meetings. However, as noted, the official style of a city or town is defined in its charter, and there is no legal barrier to cities calling themselves "town" or vice versa. As a result, not all of the municipalities that are called towns have Town Meeting. (Only communities with a population of at least 12,000 may adopt a city form of government.)

Common practice distinguishes between a "town meeting" (with an article), which may refer to any such gathering, even if municipal business is not the subject, and "Town Meeting" (never an article), which always refers to the governing body of a town.

External references for each section?

This is a bit unusual. While I like the grouping and am hesitant to change it, it isn't standard. Student7 (talk) 13:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Connecticut

The CT portion appears to deserve work -- there are towns (among the 169) that still have the town meeting as the legislative branch of town gov't (what i think is implied here for all towns) but a lot of the larger ones have changed that. The relationship between towns and cities (there are 21 cities) also should be distinguished from the Mass model: every point in the state is within a town, tho most cities are coextensive with the town bearing the same name, and i think those have all "town" responsibilities vested in city officials; exceptional cases (IIRC the only ones) are Winsted, CT (city) with 70% of the population of its town of Winchester, CT, and Groton (city), Connecticut with 25% of the pop of Groton, CT. Altho i have the advantage of a hard copy of a 14-year-old copy of the Blue Book (good for identifying what to update or confirm in the on-line edition), i don't see myself as temperamentally suited to the task. But i suppose no other vol is going to show up, and i'll end up trying to not make a mess of it. For now, i'm dragging my feet.
--Jerzy•t 07:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Modern centralised democracy destroying traditional grassroots democracy

I am reading materials where grassroots democracy in traditional community or village meetings are either being supplanted or sidelined by new power centres due to advent of modern centralised democracy.

It could be possible to collect enough references to materials to create a section on this issue. Although older societies often exist under a central figure of power such as an authoritarian monarch, daily functioning of villages in such societies in the 19th century were through grassroots meetings and community elders.

Hence Jewish Anderstein (talk) 07:19, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Direct democracy?

A knowledgeable editor has piped a link to "direct democracy" for this type of government. While town meetings are much closer to grassroots than just about anything else, I'm not at all sure that "direct democracy" really applies. Town meetings tend to set policy. They have agents (elected officers) to carry out this policy. While this is a lot closer than what say I have in Washington DC. it still isn't quite direct. In fact, nowdays, in Vermont, a town is required to have a town manager (or whatever) to carry out the town meetings (or selectmen's) policies. And the selectmen have a lot of wiggle room to exercise their judgment, as well.

I did like the old system 60 years ago in Vermont where the first question was "Shall we tax ourselves and if so, how much?" While this sounded amusing and tempting, no one ever didn't tax themselves! They finally removed it as an item, but do still decide how much per line item for various major expenditures. A lot closer but not really direct democracy IMO. Student7 (talk) 03:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, but New England town meeting certainly fits in with the definitions and examples in the Direct democracy article. If the fact that people can exercise an initiative petition process is a form of direct democratic rule, so too is the fact that people can come together at Town Meeting to set the budget and bylaws. It's not that all the government is done by direct democracy, but at least the legislative part of it is. If you want to make it clearer in the introduction that the decisions made are then generally carried out by an elected executive branch, I could see that being useful, but I think that Town Meeting fits the definition in the linked-to article, at least. (In the interest of complete disclosure, I'm the Town Moderator for the Charlton, Massachusetts town meeting.) --PeterCooperJr (talk) 11:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that there has ever been any goverment of any reasonable size where the people directly vote on minutia such as whether the electric bill should be paid this month. To define "direct democracy" in such a narrow manner that hardly any exist, and hardly any have ever existed, does not seem appropriate to me. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:40, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

On a monthly basis, perhaps not, but on a yearly or periodic basis, yes. Take for example the town I live in, where the operating budget has a line for street lights. If Town Meeting amended the line by reducing it from $12,000 to $0, then, the electric bill for the street lights isn't going to get paid, this month or any other. Likewise, if a town were having trouble establishing a budget for the fiscal year, it could conceivably hold a special town meeting each month to pay (or refuse to pay) accumulated bills until it settled on an actual budget. You could also consider the case of unpaid bills from previous fiscal years, which require a super-majority of Town Meeting's approval to pay, no matter how small or routine. Sahasrahla (talk) 07:03, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Not if you live in New Hampshire - despite the line-by-line discussion common at town meetings, the vote of annual meeting only sets the total amount of money that can be spent by the selectmen/school board, it does not determine how that money can be spent. Under state law, the board can spend the money any way it wishes. Things may be different in other states. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:51, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

What I was hoping to expunge was the link to direct democracy. We can explain the process in the text, any way we want since there is fairly good agreement on the broad scope. If not, can we then qualify it in detail? Student7 (talk) 12:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Definitions and discussions of direct democracy forms of government often use open town meeting as an example. It'd be absurd to think that in any town, even the smallest with under 100 in population, could run with all citizens making all decisions. Indeed, if one were to run the calculations in a sample state or region, I suspect that smaller towns (population < 5,000) elect a governing board that represents a smaller % of population than many medium-sized towns. CountryMama27 (talk) 18:41, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

No, the link to direct democracy should stay, especially since that article discusses New England town meeting. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:30, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. That's a perfect use of a wikilink; it doesn't require bogging down this article with a side discussion, but makes more information easily available. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:48, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

In reviewing the definition of Deliberative Democracy, however, it's clear to anyone who has sat through, moderated, and/or led a town meeting that the definition of Deliberative doesn't apply. From the wiki entry, for example - "... limiting decision-makers to a smaller but more representative sample..." Just because town meeting attendees may argue/deliberate in making decisions doesn't meet the critera for Deliberative Democracy.

I agree too that town meeting is an example of direct democracy in its ideal, if not in practice. That said, having been to town meetings in towns ranging from 1,500 to 90,000 in population, at times, it gets pretty direct! CountryMama27 (talk) 22:41, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Noted-in-passing: Some NH meetings have a "Deliberative Session" (meaning face-to-face), as the article notes, to set it apart from the secret-ballot session. Spike-from-NH (talk) 21:21, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Why the Danville California picture?

The form of government known as Town Meeting is peculiar to New England. The picture of the "Town Meeting Hall" of Danville, California has no relation to the form of government that is the subject of the article. Indeed, the website for the "Town of Danville" says, "The Town Meeting Hall is the site of monthly Town Council and Commission meetings." I intend to remove the picture unless someone can explain how it adds to the article. Snezzy (talk) 11:31, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

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Boston

Would someone write up a history, if only a brief one for now, of Boston's government? Wikipedia article "Boston", perhaps rightly so, covers only the present government. But "History of Boston" doesn't seem to cover it, either.

I mean, Boston was a town until it became a city in 1822. In that period, did it go, say, from open to representative town meeting? And we know that its mayor/city council structure changed at least once, in 1909.

The present article may not be the place for it, either, but I'm putting this comment here since it has a Massachusetts section.

Jimlue (talk) 19:44, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree that this article is not the place for it. There's historical info at Mayor of Boston and Boston City Council, which is a much more appropriate place than this high-level article. As it is it's way too detailed in its state-by-state breakdown. oknazevad (talk) 22:01, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Too detailed

As I mentioned in the above section, I find this article is a bit too detailed for an overview article. The long sections breaking down each state's implementation of the concept and its special cases are overwhelming the fundamental description, and burden the article with difficult to read passages that are best covered in separate sub-articles, not this high-level overview. Compare this article with the ones on other forms of local government (mayor–council government, council–manager government, city commission government), which are about the board concepts illustrated with examples, not poor attempts at being exhaustive litanies of every detail. oknazevad (talk) 22:01, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Split proposal

As stated above, the section on the United states is very long and makes it hard to read the article. I propose splitting that section off into the New England town meeting redirect page and only keeping a small portion of the USA section Bluealbion (talk) 22:04, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I think it would be better to split into a multiple state articles, not one for all of New England as each state section is large enough.oknazevad (talk) 23:46, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

The concept of town meetings is the same throughout New England. And, this is an encyclopedia article, not a manual for a moderator to actually run the meeting. Maybe we should have an article about New England town meetings, and trim the fat so it can cover all the states without being unduly long.

By the way, as a justice of the peace, I spent most of yesterday helping to run my town's town meeting. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this split. Town meetings in the New England states are roughly comparable. Also agree it's a non-goal to recite the rules (such as number of required signatures, debated above on this talk page). However, an overview of procedure, and some history, remains relevant and differs among the states. Spike-from-NH (talk) 01:36, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Don't split; revert back to its original topic of American town meetings. This article started in 2003-2004 about the new England town meetings. As late as June 2019 the lead read A town meeting is a form of direct democratic rule, used primarily in portions of the United States – principally in New England – since the 17th century, in which most or all the members of a community come together to legislate policy and budgets for local government. This is a town- or city-level meeting where decisions are made, in contrast with town hall meetings held by state and national politicians to answer questions from their constituents, which have no decision-making power. Material about European governments has been added with only one source, and that source does not call the governments of villages less than 100 people town meetings. The article could use more history and less government handbook. Town meetings started with the theocratic governments in the New England colonies, and later became secular. As the settlers moved west from New England they took town meetings with them so they also have a role in states in the Upper Midwest. That similar things occur elsewhere in the world can be mentioned but with references and hopefully mentioning what they are actually called. StarryGrandma (talk) 02:38, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I've actually slightly moved away from this position since i discovered we have a popular assembly page that is broader and incorporates similar ideas. Although that page needs a lot of work, non US examples from here could be moved over and this page edited to reflect only New England town meetings. Bluealbion (talk) 14:44, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

I disagree. While each town may have a different flavor of town meetings and every town-based state's "home-rule" law is likely to be unique, this page is about the form of government. That this form happens to exist primarily in New England is a point of interest, not a point of divergence. It isn't about each state's form of government - that information can be provided on individual state pages. CountryMama27 (talk) 18:55, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Open Democracy

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 31 August 2022 and 7 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tjagmax (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Tjagmax (talk) 04:59, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Assemblée communale should not link here

Despite the superficial resemblance of the topics, Switzerland != United States, and neither is a translation of the other Elinruby (talk) 13:52, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Inaccuracies in CT town meeting detail

I removed the following paragraphs from the CT section, among other rewrites, because they are wholly inaccurate. In CT, all aspects of town meetings are determined by that town's ordinances or charter. That includes the budget process, agenda items, voting, having separate referenda, even how the meetings are moderated. There's no citation in this section, because there's no CT statute that dictates how a town must conduct its meeting. The only slightly relevant state statutes are the election statutes that govern how a town referendum is conducted, if one is even conducted.

If a Town Meeting rejects a budget, a new Town Meeting must be called to consider the next proposed budget. State law allows the Board of Selectmen to adopt an estimated tax rate and continue operating based on the previous budget in the event a Town Meeting has not adopted a new budget in time.

They also do not exercise the scope of legislative powers as is typically seen in Massachusetts. For example, while many Massachusetts towns adopt and modify land-use and building zoning regulations at Town Meeting, in Connecticut the Town Meeting would have "adopted zoning" as a concept for the town, but the actual writing and adopting of specific regulations fall to an elected Planning & Zoning Board created by the adoption of zoning.

Each town determines the scope of what is discussed and voted on in its town meetings without any limits or guidance by the state. There aren't zoning concepts though CT requires town zoning plans. How those are implemented and voted on is also determined by each town.

Much of the detail in the CT section is invalid. It will take time to clean it up. I'd suggest wiki editors familiar with other states' town governance review their own entries as well. CountryMama27 (talk) 20:56, 1 December 2023 (UTC)