 I guess we're ready to start. I'm John Leone. I'm your town moderator. I assume you're all either town meeting members or hoping to run become town meeting members. Who is already a town meeting member? Okay, so a few numbers and a few potentials. Good. The first we're going to start off the evening with a short film put together by the Massachusetts Moderators Association on basically what a representative town meeting is. Town meeting is a wonderful institution. It's really shaping your community. Your voice can be heard and you actually get to vote on things. You can't complain about the town problems if you're not willing to be a part of the solution. I have an influence. I have an impact. Possibly even more importantly, you'll have an understanding as to why some decisions are made and typically they're more complex than than what it appears to be on the surface. Town meeting serves to provide incredible checks and balances in government that you don't see in any other form of government. There's a lot of debate on the floor and I think that's because we represent diverse views. I considered town meeting a almost a civic duty, almost like voting in a general election. To be a part of the local government is really an honor. Who says you don't have a voice at town hall? You do and that voice is yours if you participate in the representative town meeting. Hello, I'm R.D. Saul from NECN, New England Cable News. The town meeting is perhaps the purest form of democracy we have left, an open forum for free and frank discussion of local issues, decision-making of the people by the people and for the people. The Massachusetts Moderators Association wants to help us understand how the representative town meeting system works, and I'm joined by a couple of people to help us do that. Heather Sawitzke is moderator of Wellesley. She'll explain the warrants, the agenda that sets out the issues and the order of business. Alan Foles is Redding's moderator. He'll talk about the moderator's role, the person who runs town meeting, guides the debate and calls for votes. And we'll line out the procedures that guarantee all sides of an issue get a full, open and fair hearing. And finally, we'll take a look at some of the issues that can come up at your town meeting. Everything from budgets that can raise taxes to expenditures for things like affordable housing and open space preservation. Massachusetts general laws and local bylaws govern town meeting procedures, but each of these get-togethers is unique. Every town meeting has local customs and procedures that reflect the character, and yes, sometimes the characters of your community. The representative form of the town meeting works much like its counterpart, the open meeting. The main difference is that voting is limited to elected members. In general, motions are made the same, its duties and responsibilities are equivalent. But because of size limitations, the voting body only includes a percentage of the town's registered voters. The main reason representative meetings came into existence was to solve the problem of space. As populations grew, there were few and in some towns no place large enough to meet. Rather than switching to a city form of government, many of the largest towns opted to keep as much of town meeting intact as possible, but limited the voting membership to a reasonable size. Towns are divided into precincts or districts, and members are elected from each so that there would be a proportional representation from across the community. By state law, a town must have a population of at least 6,000 before it can consider adopting a representative town meeting. There are, of course, no requirements to make the change. The general rule of thumb is that the largest towns have made the switch to representative form, which means that many are concentrated in the eastern half of the state, but they can be found anywhere in almost any size. Framingham, currently our largest town is one, as well as places such as Belmont and Dedham and Lexington. By the west, you'll find Amherst and Lee, toward the Cape, are Falmouth and Plymouth. In all, there are approximately 40 representative town meetings. Guiding the business of the meeting is a warrant, an agenda issued by the Board of Selectmen. It contains an outline of every piece of business to come before the town meeting. The meeting takes action on all items on the warrant, no more and no less. Once the business has been completed, the meeting is adjourned. Warrant articles spell out the general subject to be discussed. When town meeting reaches a new warrant article, a town meeting member must make a motion that calls for specific action within the scope of the general warrant article. Discussion then follows. A motion that goes beyond what the warrant article outlines is not allowed on the basis that the public has not received due notice. Articles are placed on the warrant by the Board of Selectmen. Articles can also be submitted by citizen petition. Signature requirements may vary by town. Warrants are distributed or made available to town meeting members and often published in a local newspaper. Also, they are usually posted in public places around town, as specified by the local bylaws. Most people become a town meeting member because they're interested in something. They're interested in the schools. Decisions about land use, about how we zone, about how we maintain our streets, about whether we're going to have two fire stations or one in town, about whether we're going to provide enough funding for the schools that they can have full day kindergarten. When I moved to Brookline, I moved from Boston. In Boston, I had no leverage. We wanted to get a playground cleaned up. We had to clean it up ourselves. These are things that affect the value of people's homes, the general quality of life. In New England, adult males, freemen and members of the approved church were in fact the ruling body as they had been in their home country of England. The meetings at which decisions were made about town business were informal. There was much discussion. Compulsory attendance was in fashion in those days. And if you were absent, you were actually fined. There were no town officials. However, before long, these informal meetings became unwieldy and rather argumentative. And the first town official to be established was the Constable. Next came the selectman who acted as the executive committee for the town meeting. Finally, a town moderator was appointed because of, quote, intemperate clashings in our town meetings. And a town clerk became necessary to record the votes and keep the records. Interestingly, in the 1700s, in the years leading up to the American Revolution, Massachusetts Governor General Thomas Gage, appointed by the Crown, tried to put a stop to these town meetings. And after hearing about the Boston Tea Party, Lord Germain in England declared, this is what comes of their wretched town meetings. These are the proceedings of a tumultuous and riotous rabble who ought not trouble themselves with politics and government, which they do not understand. However, once independent, the commonwealth of Massachusetts included in its state constitution the following words which really confirmed the lasting importance of this form of direct democracy. The people have a right, in an orderly and peaceful manner, to assemble and to consult upon the common good and give instructions to their representatives. The most important participants in a town meeting are, of course, the town meeting members. Every registered voter is invited to attend. The meeting can't conduct business unless there's a quorum, a minimum number of town meeting members. When you enter the meeting hall, you'll find a lot of people up front. Don't be put off. They're there for a reason. You'll see the moderator and town officials. The board of selectmen will be there. They're the men and women who carry out and oversee town operations based on decisions made at the town meeting. Sometimes you'll find a town manager or administrator who is responsible for day-to-day operations. Also up front, the school committee and the superintendent of schools. The finance or advisory committee will be there too. The committee reviews budgets and makes recommendations to the town meeting on items in the warrant that involve money. And the town council will be ready to provide legal advice. I've seen town meeting change the course in which the town was headed on a particular issue. And to do so in spite of strong opinions or stands taken by boards of selectmen, town meeting decided to extend some library hours that were recently cut. Last year we had a proposal for a renovation of the athletic field. Town meeting turned it down at that time because the plan wasn't good, the implementation. This year they came back with an $7.9 million plan and town meeting overwhelmingly supported it because it was well thought out. The trees are a big thing in Lexington. I mean we voted money for trees this year when all the committees, selectmen on down said no, we're not doing that. We can't afford it and we went and voted for it. It's pretty amazing what town meeting is able to accomplish by having a group of passionate people who really care about their community in the future come together in an environment where they're given a forum to stand up and speak their minds and they're required to listen to what everyone has to say. Sounds vary in the procedures that they use to begin town meeting. Often tradition dictates. For instance, the ceremony might include the Pledge of Allegiance. Announcements in general are those specific to the meeting. Sometimes a moderator might give a synopsis of the rules. All meetings do have some things in common. When a quorum is ascertained, that is in towns that have a quorum requirement, the moderator calls the meeting to order. This is followed by a reading of the warrant. Often this is abbreviated to include only a small piece of the entire document assuring that all legal postings have been done properly. Once the meeting is underway, the moderator calls for business under each article in the warrant. Probably the best thing I get out of town meeting is a sense of connectedness with the community. I've met a bunch of very interesting, engaged, thoughtful people who have become part of my circle of friends. I can drive around town. I can go into the grocery store and I can meet other town meeting members and we have a common bond. The variety of people really makes it great. There are some people who have been there for years and years and really provide a rich historical account of the town. And there are new people who bring some new ideas, which are great too. You really become knowledgeable. And I think you feel better. I think you feel better when you have to pay taxes because you understand that, hey, this is a well-run town. I think my town meeting is great because it is, for the most part, tolerant. It is respective of differing opinions. In Reading, I find that our town meeting has such a level of civility that it's really, it's almost something that you can be extraordinarily proud of. So what are the rules? They're simple, really. Most people find they can master the rules and comfortably participate after observing one or two sessions of town meeting. Every town operates under a set of rules adopted locally. Some use Robert's Rules of Order, a commonly recognized set of procedures. Still other towns use Town Meeting Time, which is published by the Massachusetts Moderators Association and is tailored to the operation of town meeting. Sometimes rules are set by local by-law or maybe even by tradition. But they all work roughly the same way to ensure that all sides of an issue are heard. Although the rules are detailed, most business is conducted with a few common actions. Emotion. To get the business going, a member makes a motion concerning an article on the warrant. Move that the town approve and appropriate the proposed FY 2007 budget. The motion specifies exactly what the meeting will be voting on. In many towns, a second is required and then discussion begins. And I don't see three percent, three percent, three percent all over the place. I see fictitious numbers like one percent, zero percent, two percent. Those are numbers I remember. Those were the early numbers I learned. Anytime during debate, a town meeting member may propose an amendment to the original motion. If the body votes in favor of the amendment, town meeting will be voting on the newly revised motion. In most towns, when debate has been proceeding for a long time, a member may move the question, which is actually a call to end debate. When the motion is made, the moderator immediately calls for a vote on whether or not to end debate. When debate has ended, the moderator calls for a vote. It can be taken in a variety of ways. In some towns, it is taken by a show of hands or a voice vote. In others, a standing count is taken. All those in favor stand and are counted, followed by a count of those opposed. For the purpose of choosing members, towns are divided into precincts. Each precinct is a lot of a certain number of representatives. There is often a requirement of a number of signatures on nomination papers to be placed on the ballot. It is much less, however, than the number needed for town-wide offices, such as selectmen, school committee, or moderator. Although every town is different, running for this position is simple. Often there is no campaigning involved, or in some cases it is very low-key. Representatives are not generally select politicians, they are you and me and our neighbors. There are nearly as many meeting sizes as there are towns with this form of government. The largest number is found in the town of Fairhaven with more than 400 members. Sargass is the smallest, with only 50. The average is currently 210. The most common number is 240. Often people ask if members are barred from serving on other town committees and boards. The answer is no. Town meeting members are not treated as committee members or town officials. Instead, they are voters of the town who happen to be chosen by the citizenry to vote for them. In fact, typically most board members are also town meeting members. It should be pointed out that every town also makes provisions for non-members to speak. In most, these people have the same right to speak as members. In some towns it's a little more restrictive. Non-members may have to wait until all members have first had their say. Town meeting does more than discuss issues, it acts on them. All of the major decisions that shape our communities happen there. Our laws are hammered out during debates and completed with a vote. Zoning issues, how big our lot sizes should be, where businesses are to be placed, what types of businesses we allow, are all decided at the meetings. Schools, the number and size of them are decisions made by town meeting members. Town meeting gets to choose where we buy our water and where we dispose of our sewage. Should we have curbside trash pickup? Do we have town snow plowing? Do we build a new park? All decisions made by your neighbors and you if you choose to become involved. Maybe the most important decision involves what we put into our community's operating budget. It directly affects how much or how little we pay in property taxes. Town meeting is full of substance. Every dollar spent and every law enacted comes from decisions made at town meeting. Town meeting is an attainable position for most people. Even if you're busy, busy people have a way of finding time to attend meetings and beyond committees. That's a simple process of running, you merely pick up a form at the town hall, get the signatures. You need 10 signatures, 15 for good measure. And then once you're elected, you go to the moderator's meeting. She tells you this is how it works and end up at town meeting. It's very low key as far as there's no need to learn any secret words or process. You just show up. If you have a great moderator, they will tell you how and when to make your points. Anyone can be a town meeting member. So there you have it. A look at how the representative town meeting works. Deciding together what's important to the quality of life in your community and determining where to spend your tax dollars. It's a system of local government that works best when more people participate. Sure, there's disagreement and strong feelings for and against some proposals. But in the end, it's about common interests and shared goals. It's about community. So don't stand on the sidelines and complain. Jump in. Watch for your local town meeting. Run for town meeting member. Be part of the process. 99% of the cases really get decided on the merits by people really trying to think through what's good for the town. When a decision is made, it's made based on having a lot of information and a lot of input from people who may not all be like-minded. People come and often haven't made up their minds about the major issues before they sit through the debate. I am influenced by the public. The people that come to town meeting and share their views from the citizen's mic. I listen to what they have to say. I listen to what my colleagues in town meeting have to say. And I may come into town meeting thinking I'm going to vote one way and ultimately vote some other way. If you take any two town meeting members, you won't find a pair that agree on every single issue. And you're really not seeing the issues debated based on what party someone belongs to. You're seeing them debated on the merits of the issues. You cannot let it become personal. You have to be able to argue about the issue, beat on each other soundly. And then after it's over, you say, hey, Joe, how's the life? Basically, I'm voting just my gut feeling and my beliefs. Well, I definitely have a point of view, but I try to solicit some information from neighbors, read the local papers, see what people are thinking about a topic just to make sure I have all the information that I need for my vote. Town meeting usually ends up right with the decisions right where they really should be with the best interest of the community as the number one priority. Hopefully answered some of the mysterious questions. And I'm going to help with any others. In Arlington, I'm going to basically address you all as if you're already elected. And for those who aren't yet, they can come up and get any other pointers. The committee who put this all together, we have prepared. And I hope you all got two handouts, one on how to run. And the other one is sort of the basic question and the answers that you basically put those together and we all worked on the answers. Also on the front table and the back table, I have a business card where you're all please take one. And if you have any questions about town meeting, you can email me or call me. Glad to speak with you individually and privately. The answer questions you have so that when you get there, you're not stumbling around if you have a question about a proposed vote or what the procedure is or how you get up to speak or get your neighbor to speak. I'd rather talk to you beforehand or email and get them out before. One last thing is I have a sign up sheet. If you want to get town meeting time, sign up and it's 25 bucks. So you'll have to get me a check. You get it from the advocate, our warrant. This year's warrant, we have 75 articles. It goes out in detail as to which and exactly what we're going to talk about. So you'll get this first. You'll kind of read through it and say, what the heck's that all about? And we're going to have a special this year. Oh, I don't think that's announced yet, but we're going to. So you'll get a big fat warrant that's printed on broadsheet because it's cheaper. That'll be sent to you as well. Those are the first things you'll receive as a town meeting member and a general citizen of the town can give you an idea what we talk about. As it gets closer to the meeting, you're going to start getting delivered to you in the mail volumes of paper. Very paper intensive still. If they haven't gone to email delivery of these things, I'm not sure if it's because state law requires it or people just like to have paper. You're going to get a report of the redevelopment board. They talk about all the those in there will be the recommended votes that we are going to actually be voting on. It'll say you'll have the warrant issue. Then it says the vote. That's what we're actually going to be debating where it says vote and highlights. If you want to don't like what it says, you can do a motion and I'll explain how we can do that. The motion will change or amend that. Otherwise, we're just going to talk about what they're putting forth towards us. You'll get a report of the Capital Planning Commission that says we're going to spend this much money on dump trucks, on schools, on playgrounds, on equipment, heavy equipment or buildings that are going to last more than five years. It's capital equipment. Again, they're going to give you all sorts of pretty charts and graphs that are almost too small to read for me. But they have the recommended votes of all the ones to read. This is a good one. If you get that one, because that has a lot of detail about really the stuff is that lady was that gentleman on the film talked about, we're going to have one fire station or two. We're going to build a new park. That's where you're going to find it in the Capital Planning. You'll also get the Finance Committee vote. The Finance Committee reports to us, and I say I ask them in us town meeting members, to report to us on any item in the warrant having to do with money. So if it's buying new copying machines for Town Hall, it's going to be in the Finance Committee. It's their recommended votes that we go by. For the entire budget items, they're in here. These, the Finance Committee is the one to read for money issues. The selectmen in their report will often report on money issues, but we pay attention to the Finance Committee, because that's their job and the other ones we're going to go first if the selectmen want us to go with their version of the things. They have to submit a substitute motion and convince the crowd why we should go with them and not the Finance Committee who's been studying it for a while. So you'll get their report. Here's another one for the special town meeting. Then finally, you'll also get the selectmen's report. They report on everything and anything. If it's not in the Finance Committee, if it's not in the capital budget, it's in the selectmen's report. What it's often helpful to do is when you get these, I don't know how, I'm a little anal about these things. I literally cut and paste them together. So I have the warrant and I have the recommended vote so that you're not doing this. You're sitting there and it's like, all right, Item 36. I'll call out Item 36, introduce it. Alan Tosti of the Finance Committee gets up and starts reading it. I'll hear this fumble and this 50 people, 100 people looking around for Item 36 in the Finance Committee report. You may not, maybe you want to use tabs or something. It's easier and it just saves you a little time, but the selectmen's report is one that you'll want to look at because we spend a lot of time on that because the majority of the issues are selectmen issues. As they said in the video, 10 registered voters can submit a warrant item, a warrant article item. The selectmen will report on it whether they like it or not. They will say we agree with this and then they'll have a recommended vote. I'll get to the motion of the second. The last one you get is for the schools. The school committee submits their budget which you're going to get. Usually within about a month to five weeks before town meetings. So you do have a little bit of time to go over these. It's not like you're going to get them two days beforehand and then get lost in the paper shuffle. Now I had spoken about motions. What you as a town meeting can do is you don't like any of these things the recommended votes that you see. You can get, and this is something it's... I don't know if the town has it on its website, but I have it. If you email me, can I have a substitute motion vote? I'll email you one of these. This is where you would actually wrote out, I, Hugh McCory, submit the following substitute motion, voted instead of $56 million for the schools. I want to give him $32 million and he could be that simple. He would have to get up and present it. So if you're a 10 registered voter article, the selectments say no action. No action. When they say no action, it basically means no. We're not going to talk about it. We're just going to vote it down and move on. You as the person who has 10 your own article has to submit your vote. And that's the form you would use to do it. Let me just pass that one around. The caveat with that is in fairness to the meeting, you have to give it to us at least 48 hours before we're going to talk about it. And before I became moderator, they would hand those things out to us the day we were going to talk about. It was extremely frustrating. One of the first things I did as moderator was say, if you want to do that, I want to see it 48 hours beforehand. So if you think we're going to talk about it Wednesday night, give it to us Monday. If you're not sure when we're going to talk about it, give it to us as soon as you know. I mean, you had the warrant closed in January 27th, 22nd. So you've got four months to figure out what your vote wants to be. You should be ready by the first night of town meeting and have your recommended vote there. The second caveat is you have to give one to everybody. So there's 252 town meeting members because there's 21 precincts, 12 from each precinct. You've got to print up 250 of these things. Put one on everybody's chair and leave a stack of them in the tables in the back. The tables in the back are another place you should go. As soon as you go in, you check in with the clerk. On the left-hand side, they have a table set up. You check in so they know you're there because your attendance does get reported in the annual report. And then you go to the table and pick up all the extra material. A lot of it is duplicative of what you already have so you don't want to pick it up again because it's just so much recycling. When you get that motion, it's good to run it by me first and I'll also run it by town council because there may be some language in there that's not going to work. You may want to word it a little bit differently. We're not going to change what you want to do or change what you want to say. We're just going to make sure the language is legally binding upon the town. We're there to help you. We gladly do it. We do it every year. Probably work on five or six different people's things. And I'll even tell someone, we can't legally do this. Town meeting can't tell the selectman what to do. Town meeting can't tell the school committee what to do but we still get warrant articles to do that and I'll tell the people, you can't do it but here's how your warrant article should read. Your vote should read. So let them go up there and have their say a lot of times it turns into a resolution or something of that nature. So that's the basic how the meeting proceeds. We get the warrant, we get our reports, you read them, you understand them, you make your own votes if you wish. Eventually this stuff will be online, I don't know when or if it ever will. The meeting itself, I try to call it to order at eight o'clock every night. I just have to make sure it is a quorum. A quorum is I believe 127. Once we get a quorum, we can start and we just go right into the, the first night we have the little ceremony pomp and pomp and circumstance. The minute man come and march down and bring the flag and we all sing National Anthem where they play their fife and drum and then they march out. The other nights we just start by singing the National Anthem and moving on. I try to get right to business. Don't like to, I always urge people if it's been said once before, just get up and say I agree with that guy or I agree with that lady or I don't agree with them and give you reason. And don't beat the horse to death. There's some old moderator said you can convince people in three minutes. If five minutes you start to lose their interest and at seven minutes they're gonna vote against you even if they agree with you. You have 10 minutes by our bylaws to speak. I've instituted a timer so everybody can see it and it's right there. You can see how long you're taking. The second time up you can speak twice the first time 10 minutes a second time five minutes the bylaw actually says that I don't have to recognize anybody for a second time until everybody else has had their chance to speak once. I haven't enforced that in the past. I think I'm gonna this year because we have some people who like to just jump up and hear themselves talk a whole lot. So I think I'm gonna try and enforce that rule this year. At this point I'm gonna see if anyone has any questions. So if you're gonna have a question get up to the mic and address it. Yes sir. Hugh McCrory, precinct 20. Yes. I had a question on the criteria for instituting a special time meeting. You mentioned on occasion there's a special. Yes. I assume you're referring to a special time meeting. What I'm not clear about is what's the criteria for instituting a special and could you talk a little bit about that? The selectmen can call a special whenever they want. They just have to say we're gonna declare a special meeting. We're gonna open the warrant. On this day we're gonna keep it open for one day, two days, a week, three hours. Whatever they decide they can do. If you're a town resident and you want a special I believe you have to get 200 signatures to call a special town meeting and force one. To get a warrant article on a special it's 100 signatures. Okay. So you have to get two to have it called. They're obligated to open the warrant and then you have to have 100 to get your warrant article on the special. So it's not something that is that easy to do but I mean if you go and stand in front of Johnny's or stop and shop you get 100 signatures. It's not that difficult. And so the reason that the selectmen would put a special time meeting on is because it didn't make the warrant. Well it didn't make the warrant or there's other technical reasons they would do it. The town meeting has to open and close and has to do that in a certain timeframe for the 30th of June. So we can get the budgets and everything into the Attorney General's office. So they look at a special town meeting if it's only one or two articles it closes that night and the vote that's taken that night are sent in that day. So if you have something that has to happen in a quicker time frame procedurally for a bonding issue, votes on approving a contract or something of this nature you would do a special. Bob Radocha precinct 11. To those that are thinking about it last year was my first year and I had no idea how to prepare for anything. Right. And I would sit there many nights saying I wish I had known this is what was going to happen or how it was going to happen. So this year I think I know how to plan for it a little better. So at the beginning it might seem a little overwhelming for anybody but you don't get intimidated by it because after a while you'll learn how to strategize and get through it. Two questions on procedure. Is there any way you can put a drop dead time limit on taking a vote? For example I've watched it so many times prior to and what seems to happen is after the break we lose a lot of people and then as a 10 30 approaches 11 o'clock more are going many people have to work and get up in the morning to go off to work to get home late. They really don't have all night to stay. A lot of them are elderly people who fall asleep at 10 30 and have to go home to bed. Okay and so you know we saw it a couple of times for example the dog issue that was very close to 11 o'clock or even after and many people that I was around left that I know would have voted the other way but because they couldn't hang on any longer and so it'd be nice if you could stop this thing at 10 30 and continue to discuss it. But unfortunately the only mechanism I have is to make suggestions. Well we've heard it all. Anybody want to say something else? Anything new to add? It's kind of a hint. Let's move the question. As the moderator I don't have the ability to cut the bait off or terminate it. I can just make strong suggestions. And unless someone terminates the bait there's nothing I can really do. Okay so but there's no you know we end around 11 or we're supposed to end. I'm not sure what the meeting hours are 8 to 11. I've been asked if for some reason I guess it's up to me if I would move the meeting time from 7 30 to 10 30 and I was going to kind of pull the crowd this year and see what the general consensus was. If people wanted to do 7 30 I know in the old days proposed a problem because everybody worked in Boston about time they got home and ate dinner and blah blah. It was eight o'clock. Yeah okay because some people fall asleep at 7 30 and they don't make it. I almost fell asleep. So you know 7 30 would be great. I think just to get it over with the 10 30 people might hang in a little longer but come 10 30 a lot of people say I can't take it any longer I'm out of here. I see it I can see that. And when you have a standing vote down to 170 people. Yeah you know when you end up with 155 people voting and say that's far from 252 and you know so forth. The other question was I noticed on the movie they mentioned some made reference to non-town meeting members and people speaking you know somebody brings one in to speak. And they mentioned something about after everyone else has spoken. That's not our rule. Could we make because what often happens then is they go on and then two more comments. Somebody makes a motion to end the debate. And I didn't get my shot at it but they did. It seems unfair in a way. Right Arlington's bylaws that's dictated by our bylaws article one. General bylaws article one. That any member of the town any citizen can get up and vote get up and speak at any point. They just have to be introduced by a town meeting member. And a lot of times the people who are getting up to speak were people who got a 10 registered article voter. Warrant article. They've done the article they've written the vote. And then they find one of their precinct town meeting members to introduce them. And they'll just get up. Jim Smith precinct two. I want to introduce Susie Jones who's going to talk about chickens. And it's nothing we can do because our bylaws just say anyone can speak. And to Hanson precinct seven. I'm going to vote already for the 730 to 1030 change. To me the time is a real impediment. You know staying up till 11 or after 11. But I also wanted to ask you about the redistricting of the precincts that that conversation that's been happening. And when that might happen. That has to happen. Due to the census we have to analyze our precincts and make sure the way it says is I'm actually on that committee. Each precinct has to be within 5% of the population of the town or 5% spread. Right now we're just looking at what the actual precinct populations is in relation to the 42 or 3000. And make sure they're all pretty even. If we can we don't want to change anything. So it's pretty minor change. Yeah it would be minor and we we're going to try and see if we can keep everything the same way. Because people are used to being a precinct one or two or three and going down what they're going to might do is change the polling places just to consolidate them. Because it's not the precincts. Not the precincts. We're going to try and keep the precinct lines as they are if the state will let us. Jane Howard precinct 10. This year we have articles 65 and 66 on funding the water bodies fund. And two separate articles each with a different amount of money recommended. One is inserted by Vision 2020 and the other is inserted by the conservation commission. We are attempting to we have to go to the finance committee this week. And I've been asked many times now how we think that it will be addressed. Perhaps you have an answer. I have possible answer. My initial reading I thought it was addressing two different items. One was for one aspect of the water bodies and one was for another. And they were looking for two different funds. It's all the same thing just two different piles of money. Then I'm going to have them talk about 66 and 65 and say if you like this one vote no on this one. If you like this one vote no on that one. We'll handle those together. Hugh McCrory precinct 20. Will it be possible to to run through the table of basic basic points of motion. Yeah I'd have to get my book back. Maybe we could do it one by one if we have any questions. Oh it's on this thing here. It's on the third. Ah they end up perfect. Okay there are four different kinds of motions. The main motion is the bottom. Those are what is in the recommended votes that you get mailed. Those are the motions the main motion that we're voting on that we're debating. Those are the main motion. A motion to table or take from the table or advance an article to hit to put something on the table or advance an article means just that. We don't want to talk about it tonight. We're going to put it in the table. We're going to talk about it tomorrow. We're going to talk about it. At a further date. To a time certain. Yeah we'll table is just generally throw it on the table. The other one is to postpone to a time certain. Advance an article is to take something out of order. If article 75 has to do with article three and we want to talk about them at the same time someone can make a motion to advance article 75 so we talk about that first. Privilege motions those are just really procedural motions to dissolve or adjourn the meeting. We adjourn every night by the very first thing we do is like if we don't continue we don't finish tonight we adjourn to Monday. We don't finish tonight we adjourn to Wednesday. A point of no quorum that's basically what it says. I don't think there's a quorum present. We then would stand up and do a count if there's no quorum we all go home for tonight. We don't really ever get that. Correct unless someone challenges. If someone challenges during the night then but I've never seen that. I've been a town meeting member since both. Both and I've been since 94 I think. I've never seen a quorum issue of any sort. Fix the time at which to adjourn. Well we do that by just our procedure. We adjourn at 11. Question of privilege. Questions of privilege. I hate those. I don't let them go anymore. Years ago someone would pop up. Mr. Macquarie said something bad at me. Point of privilege. Point of personal privilege. I would get up defend myself and then argue the main motion. If you read town meeting time point of personal privilege has to do with the comfort and convenience of the hall literally. I'm hot. It's cold. I can't hear the speaker. The light's glaring in my eyes. Those are points of personal privilege. Once people got over the idea that we weren't going to play my role. He said she said rules anymore. It's really gone a little smoother. So I discourage points of personal privilege. Last year only one was made and that was by a guy who had been out for three years and got himself elected again and didn't realize the rules had changed. So I had to kind of quickly tell him and get him aside. Subsidiary emotions. Those are main motions. Those are voted on and have to be proved. Some are debatable and some aren't. The little chart here is going to tell you everything's a second is required except for nominations to committees. And town meeting doesn't make any nominations. Whether or not things are debated. Amendable votes required. Those are just telling you what we can actually do to the motions. Like a main motion is amendable by that motion sheet. Lay something on the table. We just kind of discussed that. That's the opposite of take it from the table. Move the previous question. That's your motion to terminate the debate. I move the previous question and all items beforehand. You got to use the whole little magic phrase. Move the previous question and all items before the article. Otherwise they can say well you're just moving what the last person spoke about. Not the whole article. So even if you don't say the whole thing I'm going to prompt you to finish saying it. Because once it will get debated it will get moved. Limit or extend the bait. That would be if say the Capital Planning Commission wanted to give us a whole presentation on the new fire stations. And they were going to take 15 minutes. They would move for extended time. Five minutes. Seven minutes. Sometimes they don't always pass. No limiting the bait would be more. How about on this issue we're going to pick on like a resolution. Which fortunately we don't have any this year. If we're going to have a resolution like a few years ago you can't spank your kid. You could move to limit the bait. Everybody only gets five minutes instead of the 10. So that would be limiting the bait. Or limit it what we will talk about. And what we talk about is limited to exactly what is in the warrant. If someone wants to get up and we're discussing the dog parks and they get up and start discussing whether or not the police have the right to carry dogs in their car or something like this. I would say it's outside the scope of the warrant article. The warrant is basically warning the town folks what we're going to talk about and when we're going to talk about it. And if it's not within that warning you can't talk about it. So the moderator will say it's beyond the scope of the article I'm not going to allow this debate. Sometimes if it seems relevant in some little fashion and I think it's going to enlighten people or educate them I'll let someone go a little bit of field. But I try to keep them on the straight and narrow. We never do a commit or refer. We would just say vote no action come back next year. That would be a commit or refer would be to refer something to another committee or something of that nature. We don't do that amend. We amend things all the time. A lot of times we'll have two or three amendments to a recommended vote. And each one of them will be written. We had it once or twice last year and Josh was running the overhead force and it kind of made a little bit simpler with the overhead because we could see what was getting changed. When we do have those kind of votes I really try and make it clear what exactly we're voting for and the order we vote on it even before I start taking the votes. So if you're ever confused after I say do y'all understand tell me because I will want to explain it again. I don't want anyone voting if they don't understand exactly what we're doing because you know I in my head I've thought about it for 10 minutes while people were talking like okay this is how I'm going to do it. And I got all written out and I'm like okay this is what we're doing. Can I have a tendency to talk fast sometimes? So I don't know if everyone understands me. I assume they do unless they tell me they don't. So please tell me if you don't understand what I'm doing. Julie Brazil I'm from Precinct 12. Just to follow up on the question when people are confused after the vote. So there's a vote on an amendment and then you say what it sounds like effectively the same thing and they don't understand anymore? Yeah. What is the best way for them just I mean obviously they've tried raising their hand. Once we vote the only thing they can do at that point is if they doubt the vote to have standing vote. At the end of the night I call for a motion notice of reconsideration. What that means is you want to have Article 12 reconsidered. You have to do it that night. You have to do reconsideration notice on the night the article is voted on. Not the next morning not the next meeting. That night I noted down Marika Pelker from the Selectman's Office the chief over there she notes it down and the clerk notes it. So we'll all get that notice of reconsideration. You can come back at the next meeting or any meeting before we adjourn and dissolve the meeting. Move for reconsideration of Article 12. They have to vote to reconsider it and it opens the article up again from the beginning. So we can re-debate it. We can re-debate what was voted on. We can take a new vote. But if you think the vote you weren't clear. You think the vote was wrong. The vote didn't come out the way you thought it should. You're going to come back with your motion to reconsider. You're going to come up with your new vote. Give it to everybody. And we'll re-vote it. That's the only way to change it once it's voted. All right. Yeah. Did that actually happen? Yeah reconsideration does happen. We did all the finance articles. Alan Tosti gets up every night moves through reconsiderations. He does it every time and I wonder what I'm missing. I feel naive because I feel strategic. There's something happening that I don't understand. He does that on the finance issues because a lot of times he they don't know if someone later on is going to change one of their other numbers. And they're going to have to go back and change a previous number. The state might decide on the last meeting. Hey we're going to give Arlington $200,000 less this year. Finance committees go to now come back move article reconsider article 12 and change those numbers. That's why the finance committee will he'll get up every night. You'll see him articles 14 through 18. It's like okay. And we all get them zoning. Articles they often will note their reconsideration the planning board. One last year we had to reconsider one because when Juliana was looking at the wording the next day we left out a key word. I guess it was my fault for not picking something up or her fault for having to vote wrong or so we had to reconsider that to throw the keyword in to make the things sensible. Those are the times when reconsideration happens. And Howard, precinct 10. Isn't there a time or a process where you can reconsider right after the vote? Oh you can reconsider right away. There's some special wording that you use. You can vote on article 12. You can jump up. Notice the reconsideration. And you can't raise your hand. Motion to reconsider article 12. That's people do that for a tactical procedural rush. Once we've reconsidered something once we can't reconsider it again. So if you've had a lively debate about your article and it's one by 75% you got the crowd. You're going to jump up reconsider it and put it to bed for the meeting. So the next night someone else won't be able to reconsider and change everybody's mind. People are going to say oh man we beat that horse to death. We voted this way. Let's just get it done. Okay so it's sort of a tactical thing but that's kind of almost dirty pool in a way I think. Is there a required number or percentage of votes that? I think to to reconsider we have to um it's in our I think it's in the bylaws yeah. It's a majority vote. Yeah we have to vote to reconsider it's a majority vote. And you have to be on the majority side. You have to vote on the prevailing side. Prevailing side. Humacroy precinct 20. Apologize to everyone for monopolizing the microphone. I had a question which came up last year. Regarding and I've looked at the I've looked at the bylaw since regarding whether committee members should vote on on motions. And can you clarify that and does it does a motion have to be like a specific to that committee or is it is our committee members excluded now this from voting or not and what happens obviously if the committee member is a time meeting member you know if the committee member is also a time meeting member well if a committee a committee member only town meeting members are allowed to vote you could be on the finance committee but not be a town meeting member you can't vote a town meeting only town meeting members are allowed within the enclosure and only town meeting members are allowed to vote and if you're a town if you're on the finance committee I'm going to pick on them and you're a town meeting member you're not precluded from voting on the finance articles. You'll have, there are not many, three or four of the school committee members or town meeting members. They'll come, they vote, they're not precluded from voting on the school budget. So I missed the first part, I think, about what is the basis for these committee members or selectmen being able to also be town meeting members, because it almost seems like there's sort of a double dipping. They're up there talking about, you know, that the selectmen have already voted on the issue and then they're up there again as a town meeting member telling you how to vote again. Well, they're not telling you how to vote, but they're voting their way and how they're going to vote. I mean, I'm a town meeting member as well as the moderator. I don't have to be a town meeting member to be the moderator. It's their own prerogative that they want to be a town meeting member and they want to vote and represent their precinct and town meeting. So be it. They get themselves elected. So is that like a bylaw or anything that? No, it's just, it's as any citizen of age can become a town meeting member. They get their ten signatures like the rest of us, so they go down and get a write-in and they become town meeting members. You can't serve on two committees. There are restrictions in the bylaws about how many committees you can serve on and the selectmen can't serve on any other committee unless they're directed by bylaw or one of our votes. It says a selectman will serve on this committee. Then they have to, but they can't just go and volunteer for every committee in town. Because otherwise it'd be in our little kings and queens. You can't kind of try and limit them as much as we can. See, oh, we're all going to get a button. You getting new buttons this year? Excellent. Josh makes us buttons. Some of you did a good job, got up, introduced yourself at the microphone, name, precinct, at the mics. Otherwise I have to remind you. The reason we do that is for the stenographer. Up front with me is me. Well, it was Corinne. We're going to see who it is this year. And then Gabe, Gabe's our court reporter, the stenographer. He gets everything down, he turns it into a written report. And that gets stored in the clerk's office there way back for 200-something years. So he doesn't know everybody. He's getting good. He's been there for a long time. But on the tape, he's not going to be able to tell. So people get up, have to introduce themselves just strictly for record keeping purposes. You may all know that. If anyone had any more questions, that's about it for me. Thank you. And again, take one of my cards. Call e-mail. Have some cookies. And I want to thank Acne for coming down and videoing this. This is going to eventually appear at some point on the community channels. So thank you very much.