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Some Notes About Town Meeting
by Moderator John French
The following suggestions and explanations may serve as a useful reminder for town meeting
veterans, and should also be helpful to those citizens less familiar with town meeting
procedures.
1. Introduction
Lincoln has an Open Town Meeting, which means that any registered voter can attend,
speak and vote. Any resident who is not registered should contact the Town Clerk’s
Office at Town Hall, in person or by telephone, to become a registered voter.
2. Meeting Schedule
The annual town meeting is held on the Saturday before the last Monday in March,
commencing at 9:30 a.m. It will run until late in the afternoon (4:30 p.m. or thereabouts,
unless it is the sense of the meeting to go a bit longer, if it seems likely the business
of the meeting can be completed by doing so), with a 45 minute break for lunch at a
convenient stopping place around 12:30 p.m.
If all Articles on the warrant cannot be completed on Saturday, the meeting will
adjourn and reconvene on the following Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. until 10:30 or 11:00 p.m., the
town elections having been held on the intervening Monday. If necessary, town meeting will
continue on the following nights.
3. Order of Business
Except for articles included in the consent calendar (see paragraph 5 below) the
business of the meeting will proceed in the order of the articles as printed in the
Warrant.
Occasionally some action for town meeting arises after the Warrant for the Annual
Meeting is closed, but prior to the time for the meeting. In that event the Selectmen may
call a Special Meeting to be held in the middle of the Annual Meeting, which will be
temporarily adjourned to permit action on the Special Meeting Articles. (Notice of the
Special Meeting will be separately mailed to residents.)
4. Budget
The first substantial piece of business at town meeting will be discussion and adoption
of the budget under Article 5. The budget is printed at the end of the report of the
Finance Committee in the Financial Section of the Town Report, just ahead of the Warrant.
You should be sure to bring this to town meeting. The procedure for discussing the budget
will be as follows:
a. The Finance Committee will make a motion to adopt the budget as printed, with any
changes in the printed items which have surfaced since it was printed, and will make such
comments and explanations about the budget as it deems appropriate.
b. Before there is further discussion the Moderator will go through the budget, page by
page, and ask if anyone wishes to hold out and discuss any line item.
c. Once that process is completed, there will be a vote on the entire budget, except
for the items held out for discussion.
d. Each item held out will then be discussed in turn, with the person who held out the
item being called on first. Upon completion of the discussion of a budget line item, it
will be voted on. Thereafter, the succeeding items held out will be handled the same way,
until all items in the budget have been voted on.
e. At the very end of town meeting (or after disposition of all money articles) the
Finance Committee will make a second motion under Article 5 to take a certain amount of
the budget appropriations from free cash. This reduces the amount to be raised by
taxation.
5. Consent Calendar
After completion of action on the budget, the meeting will take up the Articles on the
Consent Calendar. In accordance with the Town’s bylaws, the Moderator makes an
initial judgment as to Articles which are likely to pass without debate and which
shouldn’t need explanation beyond the motion to be made under the Article. The
Articles to be included in Consent Calendar, and the motions to be made under them, will
be distributed to each household prior to the town meeting. The procedure with respect to
the Consent Calendar will be as follows:
a. One motion will be made and seconded to adopt the motions under all Articles
included in the Consent Calendar.
b. The Moderator will then go through the Consent Calendar, Article by Article, briefly
explaining the action to be taken under each, and asking if anyone wishes to remove the
Article from the Consent Calendar.
c. After all Articles have been reviewed, the original motion, modified to remove any
Article which has been held out will be voted on.
d. The Articles held out from the Consent Calendar will thereafter be considered in
their normal position in the Warrant.
6. Speaking at Town Meeting
a. Please indicate a desire to speak by raising your hand or, if that doesn’t get
the moderator’s attention, stand at your seat.
b. Once called upon, please go to the nearest standing microphone (one at the front of
the auditorium and two at the rear) or wait to receive a cordless microphone.
The
microphones will all be on; do not try and change any on/off switches. Speak in a
normal voice approximately six inches from the microphone.
c. Please start by stating your name and residence.
d. If you have questions, these should be directed to the moderator who will have the
appropriate town official respond. Do not attempt a colloquy directly with a town
official.
e. It is hoped that, in most instances, proponents of motions will present them in ten
minutes or less. Representatives of other town boards will then be given an opportunity to
speak on the motion, followed by general discussion. A maximum of four to five minutes
should be adequate for a speaker to comment on or raise a question regarding the motion
being debated. Brevity and sticking closely to the issue before the meeting should keep
the debate focussed and within reasonable time limitations. No specific time limits will
be imposed, although the Moderator may feel it necessary to note if a speaker is being
discursive, repetitive or straying from the subject.
f. If anyone intends to propose an amendment to any motion (there will be a handout at
town meeting with the motions to be made under each Article) it will be most helpful if he
or she has it written out ahead of time, and notifies the Moderator in advance of the
meeting, if possible. There will, of course, be many occasions where amendments will
properly come up in the course of debate, which cannot be handled in the above fashion.
7. Cutting Off Debate.
The parliamentary procedure to end debate by "Moving the previous question"
is a somewhat drastic and anti-democratic action. It is a motion which takes precedence
over any other motion on the floor, it cannot be debated and requires a two-thirds vote.
If it passes there is no further debate on the motion which was being considered - it is
immediately put to a vote.
Anyone contemplating such a motion should consider the following:
- is it fair to those still wishing to speak?
- if the purpose is to speed up the meeting, it may take longer to count the vote to
establish the two-thirds plurality, than to have continued the debate.
- you must be recognized to make the motion. Shouting "Question" is not
appropriate and will not be heeded.
- a motion for the previous question cannot be made by a speaker after he or she speaks
on the matter being debated.
If the Moderator determines there are only a few more people waiting to speak, he may
suggest the motion be withdrawn rather than tie up the meeting on a two-thirds vote.
8. Voting Procedures
Most matters require only a majority vote, which will initially be determined by a
voice vote. If the Moderator is unsure of the outcome (or if seven or more voters question
the Moderator’s determination of the result of the voice vote) he will call for a
standing vote. If there is still doubt, the votes for and against will be counted by
previously designated tellers, who will report their count to the Town Clerk who, with the
Moderator, will tabulate all votes, for and against.
On matters requiring a two-thirds vote, the counting procedure will most likely apply,
unless the vote is unanimous, and can be so recorded. |
