Next Monday night, Dec. 9, Newcastle will hold a special town meeting.
The menu includes the kind of items generally associated with a special town meeting: a couple of specific money articles, a proposed ordinance change, and a land donation the voters need to sign off on.
Being business that is both crucially important to a town yet seemingly trivial to most of the people actually living in it, turnout for most special town meetings is almost always pathetically low.
Declining attendance at annual town meetings has probably been a topic since the second ever annual town meeting, when attendance was lower presumably because the novelty had worn off.
According to some national polls, American’s faith in their government to get anything done is at an all time low.
We already knew Americans’ approval of Congress was in the toilet, but polls appear to indicate that confidence in the entire system is shrinking to dangerous levels and why not?
It’s not like the federal leaders in either party have demonstrated a real desire or ability to get anything done.
The polls are scary because they indicate a dangerous lack of confidence in the system. If we lack confidence in our leaders, and faith in our form of government, and have no hope the system will work itself out, the American future is very bleak indeed.
The problem is, in Maine, more so than other areas of the country, we are our own government.
Not specifically Newcastle, but any of our local towns really; our selectmen and school board members are not professional legislators whose career prospects hinge on winning the next election.
By and large, they are local volunteers boasting a generous streak of altruism or masochism, depending on who and when you ask. To do their business, our business; to know what they need to do on our behalf, they need our input and support.
As they say, democracy is decided by those who show up.
In that sense every town meeting is an important meeting. They all count.
