Town meeting is used in portions of the
United States, principally in
New England, where it has been the primary form of town government since the 17th century.
Connecticut Connecticut town meetings are usually bound to a published agenda; meeting participants can not alter proposed items or add new business. Each town determines the method, frequency, and range of governance for its town meeting and codifies these in its ordinances or town charter. A moderator is chosen at the start of each meeting, which is typically held in a public venue, either in the town itself or nearby. Votes are taken by voice, and if close by show of hands. In towns with an open town meeting form, all
registered voters of the town are eligible to participate in and vote at town meetings. Representative town meeting is used by some larger towns, where voters elect representatives to participate in town meetings, similar to a
town council. Some towns use a financial town meeting form where an open town meeting exists with limited
jurisdiction to vote solely on financial affairs while the town's legislative powers have been vested in a town council. Town meetings may have binding votes for some items in which the meeting participants vote to approve or deny the measure. Some towns require a referendum for items such as annual budgets and changes to the town's ordinances. For those items, the town meeting votes to whether or not to send the issue to a referendum, which is held at a later date pursuant to the schedule laid out in that town's ordinances.
Maine In
Maine, the town meeting system originated during the period when the
District of Maine was part of
Massachusetts. Most cities and towns operate under the town meeting form of government or a modified version of it. Maine annual town meetings traditionally are held in March. Special town meetings also may be called from time to time. The
executive agency of town government is an
elected, part-time board, known as the
Board of Selectmen, having three, five, or seven members. Between sessions, the board of selectmen interprets the policy set at Town Meeting and is assigned numerous duties including: approving all town non-school expenditures, authorizing highway construction and repair, serving as town purchasing agent for non-school items, issuing licenses, and overseeing the conduct of all town activities. Often the part-time selectmen also serve as
town assessors, overseers of the poor, and
road commissioners. Generally, there are other elected town officers whose duties are specified by law. These may include clerks, assessors,
tax collectors,
treasurers, school committee members,
constables, and others. In 1927 the town of
Camden adopted a special charter and became the first Maine town to apply the
manager concept to the town meeting-selectmen framework. Under this system, the manager is administrative head of town government, responsible to the select board for the administration of all departments under its control. The manager's duties include acting as purchasing agent, seeing that laws and ordinances are enforced, making appointments and removals, and fixing the compensation of appointees. (See also:
Council–manager government.) From 1927 to 1939, eleven other Maine towns adopted special act charters similar to the Camden charter. Today, 135 Maine towns have the town meeting-selectmen-manager system, while 209 use the town meeting-selectmen system.
Massachusetts in Boston
History The town meeting "was the original and protean vessel of local authority." The early meetings were informal, with all men in town likely participating. Even when it did not fully exercise it, "the power of the town meeting knew no limit." Town meeting created principles to regulate taxation and land distribution; it bought land for town use and forbade the use of it forever to those who could not pay their share within a month; it decided the number of pines each family could cut from the swamp and which families could cover their house with clapboard. The men who went to that town meeting hammered out the abstract principles under which they would live and regulated the most minute details of their lives. The decisions they made then affected the lives of their children and grandchildren. Town meeting often had a reputation for being "active, suspicious, contradictory, and cantankerous", but it was well regarded by others.{{efn|See, for example,
Henry David Thoreau's comments: "I am more and more convinced that, with reference to any public question, it is more important to know what the country thinks of it than what the city thinks. The city does not think much. On any moral question, I would rather have the opinion of Boxboro than of Boston and New York put together. When the former speaks, I feel as if somebody had spoken, as if humanity was yet, and a reasonable being had asserted its rights — as if some unprejudiced men among the country's hills had at length turned their attention to the subject, and by a few sensible words redeemed the reputation of the race. When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town-meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States." Massachusetts towns with 6,000 or more residents may adopt either open town meeting or the
representative town meeting form of government. The
select board 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 presides over the meeting, making sure that the town's chosen rules of parliamentary procedure are followed, judging the results of voice votes or shows of hands and counting votes that are too close to be judged by eye or ear. The
Finance Committee, often called the Advisory 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 may make legal recommendations on any articles of the warrant, to ensure town meeting is acting lawfully. Massachusetts towns having at least 6,000 residents may adopt a
representative town meeting system through the normal
charter change process in the State Legislature. 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. Before it became a city in 2018,
Framingham, which at the time was the largest town in the Commonwealth by population, had 216 representatives in Town Meeting, twelve from each
precinct.
Scheduling An annual town meeting is held in the spring and may also be known as the annual budget meeting. Towns were once required to hold their annual town meetings between February 1 and May 31, but Chapter 85 of the Acts of 2008 extended this window of time to June 30. (Town
fiscal years start on July 1.) At this meeting, the town budgets for the new fiscal year and takes care of any outstanding housekeeping items from the current fiscal year. It may also vote on non-budgetary warrant articles, 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' may be 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.
New Hampshire In
New Hampshire, towns, village districts (which can deal with various government activities but usually concern public water supplies) and
school districts have the option of choosing one of two types of annual meeting: Traditional meetings, and ballot-vote meetings that are known informally as "SB 2" or "Senate Bill 2". A variation of SB 2 and representative town meeting are also allowed under state law but as of 2015 are not in use by any community.
Traditional town meetings Traditional town meeting is held annually on the second Tuesday of March to choose town officers, approve a town budget, and approve large contracts. Town
selectmen can call special town meetings throughout the year as needed, although these must be approved by a judge if they affect the budget. State law prohibits town meetings from being held on the
biennial election day in November. State law lets the town moderator adjourn a long-running meeting and reconvene it at a later date to finish the town's business. Any town meeting or adjournment thereof must have its time and place published with three days' notice, along with the
warrant specifying each issue to be decided. Town meeting can amend the warrant articles before voting on them, and can conduct non-binding discussions of other issues, but cannot make other binding votes without this notice to town voters. Attendance wanes over the course of a town meeting, and a traditional tactic was to re-vote after many on the opposite side had gone home. In 1991, the state enacted RSA 40:10, giving town meeting members the right to bar reconsideration of a specified vote (or any "action...which involves the same subject matter"). If a town meeting does not bar reconsideration and later does vote to reconsider a decision, the issue can be taken up only at an adjourned session at least one week later.
Official ballot referendums (SB 2) Official ballot referendums, or the SB 2 format, provides that town voters make binding decisions not at town meeting but by secret ballot in the municipal election. To adopt SB 2, or to revert to traditional town meetings, a question to that effect on the municipal ballot must win a three-fifths majority. This format was instituted by the state legislature in 1995 because of concerns that modern lifestyles had made it difficult for people to attend traditional town meetings. In 2019, however, the law was changed so that the three-fifths majority would have to occur at town meeting itself: The town meeting would have to vote to remove its own final decisions to the municipal ballot. Under SB 2, a first session, called a "Deliberative Session", is held about a month prior to the town election. This session is similar in many ways to the traditional town meeting. However, unlike the town meeting, while the wording and dollar amounts of proposed ballot measures may be amended, no actual voting on the merits of the proposals takes place. Deliberative sessions are less well attended, in bodies that have adopted SB 2, than are plenary town meetings in bodies that have not adopted SB 2, as their decisions are not final. However, the final vote by secret ballot attracts more voters than town meetings do because of the shorter time requirement, and absentees can vote. Deliberative sessions have been charged with "
sabotaging" the intent of a ballot question; for example, changing a warrant article, "To see if the Town will raise and appropriate (amount) for (purpose)" to merely read, "To see." A 2011 law barred deliberative sessions from deleting the subject matter of a warrant article. In 2016, petitioners in Exeter submitted an article to place on the ballot an advisory "vote of no confidence" in a school official, and the deliberative session removed the word "no". It also permitted, and later directed, town meetings to be held in November. That process was not complete until the 1920s. Laws adopted in 1932 for the first time refer to "Biennial town elections", stating that these were "a substitute for a town meeting...and a reference in any law to a town meeting or special town meeting shall be construed as reference to a town election". The state's school districts (independent units with taxing powers) voted on budgets and capital levies and elected school board members in town-meeting style until the late 1950s.
Rhode Island Due to a change in the state's constitution, Rhode Island municipalities have a greater degree of
home rule compared to the other
New England states. Like Connecticut, a few towns utilize a so-called Financial Town Meeting in which an Open Town Meeting exists with limited jurisdiction to vote only on financial affairs and the town's legislative powers have been vested in a Town Council. The direct democracy tradition is now uncommon in Rhode Island. Ten towns have town meeting governments:
Barrington,
Exeter,
Foster,
Glocester,
Hopkinton,
Little Compton,
Richmond,
Scituate,
Tiverton, and
West Greenwich.
Vermont , was built in 1822 to be used for town meetings, which had previously been held in private homes. It is still in use today. Vermont towns are normally required to hold an annual town meeting on the first Tuesday in March at a place designated by the select board. The date of the annual Town meeting may be changed by a vote of the citizens at a Town meeting duly warned for that purpose. The purpose of town meeting is to elect municipal officers, approve annual budgets and conduct any other business. All cities and some towns in
Vermont operate under charters instead of general legislation (see
special legislation). The cities and chartered towns, except for
South Burlington, are required by the terms of their charters to hold an annual town meeting, on Town Meeting Day. Many towns vote on matters of substance (e.g., budgets, elected officials, etc.) by secret ballot (also known as
Australian ballot). However, there is no state law that requires towns to vote by Australian ballot; several towns still conduct all business "from the floor". Cities and towns are governed by either a city council or a select board. They are fully empowered to act on most issues and are generally referred to as the municipality's legislative body. But all town budgets (and those of other independent taxing authorities) must be approved by
plebiscite; explaining the local government's budget request to the voters is the principal business of Town Meeting. Voters at Town Meeting may also vote on non-binding resolutions, and may place items on the ballot for the following year's meeting. There is no general requirement for chartered municipalities to observe town meeting or to put their budgets to
plebiscite. When the Town of South Burlington was re-chartered as the City of South Burlington in 1971, the new charter provided for city elections in April and required only budget increases of 10% or more per annum to be placed before voters.
No other municipality has been granted such a charter by the legislature, and there is strong sentiment against making future exceptions. According to the
Vermont Secretary of State's Citizen's Guide to Town Meeting, Vermont gives state employees the day off on town meeting day. Vermont "law also gives a private employee the right to take unpaid leave from work to attend his or her annual town meeting, subject to the essential operation of the business or government. Employees must provide at least seven days notice to their employer to take advantage of this right to attend town meeting. Students who are over 18 also have the right to attend town meeting" and not be declared truant.
Moderator Moderators are elected to one-year terms. The moderator's duties include reviewing the warrant (published agenda) for town meeting, presiding over town meeting, deciding questions of order, making public declarations of each vote passed, and prescribing rules of the proceeding.
Other states Towns in several western states and counties also practice town meeting, though generally with more limited powers.
Michigan was the first western state to adopt the town meeting system, but it was initially very restricted in its function.
Minnesota has had town meetings as the policy-setting bodies of
townships. They were required once the voting population of a township reached 25 persons. Townships still hold town meetings. New Jersey had town meetings for
townships organized under the
Township Act of 1798. They were abolished when the act was revised in 1899. == In Spain ==