Technology, Time, Preparation Hot Topics at Town Meeting Review

“Preparation” and “balance” emerged as the two words Wayland Town Moderator Dennis Berry said best applied to his feelings about Wayland’s five-session, 16-hour 2012 Annual Town Meeting.

Berry moderated a review of the annual meeting Wednesday night among about 25 residents and before some members of Wayland’s Town Meeting Advisory Committee, Town Meeting Procedures Subcommittee and Town Meeting Facilities Subcommittee.

The preparation of various town boards and committees as well as petitioners was less than ideal, Berry said. That lack of preparation led to confusion among voters and added precious minutes to a town meeting that aleady featured a warrant of 31 articles.

Berry said that he had received numerous notes from individuals reflecting on what worked and what didn’t during the meeting, Berry’s first annual town meeting as moderator. Several of those notes, Berry said, addressed the length of the meeting and indicated that “Four nights in a row is too much for some people.”

Wayland's annual town meeting commenced on April 9 and continued on consecutive nights through April 12. It then adjourned for 11 days to allow for Spring Break and reconvened for a fifth and final session on April 23.

While the attendees at Berry’s town meeting review agreed that four nights in a row was trying, they were also leery of shortening town meeting at the expense of healthy and helpful debate of the issues.

“Somewhere there’s a balance in trying to get it done in a reasonable amount of time … and having people feel like they have time to speak,” Berry agreed.

Much of the review was spent discussing ways to address those two words – preparation and balance – to provide an improved Annual Town Meeting experience.

Suggestions on those topics, as well as a few more general topics, included:

• Beginning town meeting on a weekend day, such as a Saturday afternoon. What isn’t completed during a longer daytime session on Saturday could hopefully be completed on Sunday. Electronic voting vendors do allow for “dark days” between sessions, so the sessions do not necessarily have to occur on consecutive days.
• Rearranging the schedule so that the annual town meeting occurs before the town elections. This would allow voters to hear about issues before heading to the polls to vote overrides, etc.
• Utilizing a voice vote, rather than electronic vote, for decisions to terminate debate.
• Allowing less than a 30-second window to cast electronic votes.
• Creating “canned” slides for common activities. Those slides could be projected on a screen to announce to voters situations such as “Vote on the main motion” or “Vote on the amendment.”
• Projecting the text of the main motions, as created ahead of time, on a screen so voters can read them.
• Projecting the text of amendments to the motions on a screen.
• Creating a checklist for what each submitted article should include, so as to help ensure the article is complete before coming to town meeting.
• Requiring that articles for the warrant be submitted in motion form since it is the motion under the article, not the article itself, on which voters decide.
• Making the Board of Selectmen’s annual warrant hearing about the motions under the articles, and not the articles themselves, so that voters can ask questions before town meeting specifically about what they will be voting.
• Requiring that cell phones, computers, etc., be turned off during town meeting so as to prevent attendees from alerting other voters of when a particular article or issue is on the floor.
• Developing a special set of rules for how the budget article is handled that would allow for more in depth and detailed discussion than is typically possible given the time guidelines for speakers at town meeting.
• Display an American and a Massachusetts state flag at the podium for town meeting.

The suggestions made during the moderator's review were briefly discussed and recorded. No decisions were made.