We had the annual Town Meeting yesterday, here in Liberty. It’s one of my favorite community gatherings.
If you’ve never experienced a New England town meeting, it’s the closest thing to true democracy you’ll likely ever see. Every town resident has the opportunity to comment on absolutely anything on the agenda (and we had about 30 items, which is typical). Every line item on the town budget, the performance of local elected officials, and any number of other topics are fair game, and many people are happy to comment and opine, including me. Kate is more reserved in making comments and piping up, but I’ll comment on 5-10 things without batting an eye.
This year, I went into Town Meeting with the goal of getting the amount we set aside each year as a capital reserve for the fire department increased, from $15,000 per year, to $25,000. For the past few years, our fire chief has asked for the larger amount, but the budget committee and others keep swatting it back down to $15,000, with the idea that they just wanted to use the capital reserve as a downpayment on future equipment purchases. This made some sense in the era of 1% interest rates, which was available to municipalities in years past. But with those rates now closer to 5% and heading higher, this strategy is, in my view, a bad idea. So, I piped up about that, debating politely with a couple of friends over it as part of the meeting. I’m happy to say that my logic won over the audience and the town voted to increase the capital reserve to the amount our chief recommended and that I proposed. I’m convinced its the better approach for the town, and that we’ll be better able to replace equipment when it needs it in the future rather than being forced to “make do”. In firefighting, “make do” is rarely a good approach, so I’m glad our citizens overwhelmingly approved the increase.
The other big item on the agenda, both for the town and for me, was to install solar panels and heat pumps at at least two of our town buildings, the town office and the fire station. The typical “solar skeptics” and people ill-informed about modern heat pumps voiced their concerns, but I and others piped up to counter those feelings, with facts. Another element of the debate involved whether we should continue to invest in our town office building, given some drainage and moisture issues that occur there. Some residents want to move the town office out of the village, up to the area of the community hall. I have many concerns about that, as it will hasten the erosion of businesses out of our tiny village “downtown”. Also, I think little skill or modern building science has been applied to the drainage and moisture problems at the town office, with a series of people lacking good training tackling the problem instead of true experts. I’ll write about that as I become more involved in that little project, which I intend to do.
A friend who runs an energy conservation company suggested we include energy conservation efforts in this project, which was a great idea. I don’t think she was attempting to drum up business in any way with her suggestion – it was just good, common sense. So, we added that to the scope of the project, and it also passed by a wide margin.
We have a lot of debate in these meetings, and I’ve heard that in years past they were so contentious that their was a law enforcement officer on hand in case things got out of hand. But the current situation is far from that, and our debates are vigorous but polite. I think that’s the way communities should operate, and I’m glad our little town so often operates with what I view as good, common sense. I’m proud of us, for that.
