Bob Neal

The first Saturday in March around here means town meetings, often called the purest form of democracy. Reporters assigned to cover them might call them hell week.

Whatever your view of it, town meeting time often brings out a few national media types who tromp through the snow to a meeting somewhere in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont, sit for a few minutes of debate about, say, buying radios for the fire company, shoot some film and file a story about crusty old New Englanders governing themselves.

The national media folks seldom stay for the lunch put on by a PTA or church to raise funds. Ditto many local reporters, who sometimes have to cover two or three meetings in a day. Where is teleportation when you really need it?

Though national media romanticize our self-government, attendance at town meeting was never huge and has been falling for years. Attendance has always been for the most devoted, those who work in town, who visit their forebears in the local cemetery, who worship at a church in town, who shop at or own a store in town or who farm.

Examples. A couple of decades back, I assigned a journalism class at the University of Maine at Farmington to cover the Farmington town meeting. Farmington has about 7,600 people, but only about 100 turned out that year. In New Sharon, with about 1,400 people, about 175 turned out that year. By my final year on the New Sharon Select Board (2019) fewer than 100 turned out.

When COVID-19 came along, everything changed. The pandemic may have planted the seed that ends the New England town meeting.

Something called town meeting still exists, but more commonly these days, residents vote by secret ballot on the warrant articles. Today in New Sharon, our “town meeting” referendum has two elections and 27 articles to be voted on at the town office.

Still, while no one is debating in the schoolhouse gym, more people are participating, albeit at a lower level of commitment.

Mark Brewer, a political scientist at the University of Maine, told the Morning Sentinel last year, “Those communities that had to … adopt secret ballot, I don’t think it’s a surprise participation rates went up. Just voting is much less time demanding and onerous than a town meeting.”

That is the dilemma facing towns all over Northern New England as we emerge from our COVID cocoons. Do we go for the deeper experience of discussing the warrant articles in public or do we go for the wider participation of secret ballot voting?

My first town meeting was 1981, and I recall sitting on a large rock above the Sandy River eating my lunch sandwich — no one had told me the Methodist Church put on a lunch for everyone — and reflecting on how directly I was participating in New Sharon democracy. It was sinking in that I was part of the town’s legislature and, among other things, that day I had voted on the candidates for town executive, the select board.

I didn’t know a lot of the terms, such as “reserve fund,” which is money set aside each year for major purchases such as fire trucks. Waiting until we needed a new fire truck and then borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars wouldn’t be very Yankee. After a couple town meetings, I knew the terms and process, felt like a local. Still a flatlandah, though.

People in other parts of the country may not understand the Yankee devotion to our form of government. I believe it has something to do with our devotion to voting. Maine, after all, always finishes in the top two or three in turnout at elections, so voting here is palpable, not just theoretical. At town meeting, we might vote 40 or 50 times. In one day.

Contrast that with such states as Texas and Florida, where legislatures are working overtime — no, that’s not an oxymoron — to take votes away from people whom the legislators think might not vote the way legislators want.

Town meeting is a big deal, but it’s only part of what drives small towns. If you read the story this week in the Bangor Daily News about a devastating fire in downtown Fort Kent, you saw how people coalesced to help. “JD’s Tavern,” the BDN reported, “opened to supply coffee and sandwiches for the firefighters.” Suzie Paradis, town manager, and the administrative staff took coffee and food to firefighters who came from half a dozen towns. Paul Saucier, transportation director for SAD 27, kept a school bus running nearby for firefighters to warm up, and businesses opened as warming centers. I’ll bet the folks pitching in to help in Fort Kent are the most likely to turn out for town meeting.

Give the last word to Mark Brewer, the political scientist at UMaine. “From people that I’ve spoken with in many of these smaller communities that still do town meeting, for them, getting in the same location with your fellow community members and talk face to face about community issues is important.”

Bob Neal echoes Mark Brewer’s stress on the importance of face-to-face contact we get at town meeting. Coming out of the pandemic, we need more face-to-face. Lots more. Neal can be reached at turkeyfarm@myfairpoint.net.