We have said in this very space that town meetings are democracy on the hoof and it is the duty of every citizen to inform themselves and participate. Democracy is decided by those who show up.
Maybe casting a ballot for a national politician sometimes feels like a lost cause, but at least here in Maine, we enjoy a privilege afforded to relatively few of our fellow citizens: the annual town meeting, where just by dint of being a taxpayer in good standing, you are a member of your own legislative body, where your vote and your voice matter as much as the next person’s.
Believe it or not, right now, at the turn of the year, in the dead of winter, this is the most underrated yet important time on the local political calendar.
This is the time when the preliminary budget work municipal officials and school administrators have quietly been preparing for months is about to go public in front of interested citizens and members of the local budget committees.
The soon-to-be-finalized budgets set the table for the annual town meetings to come.
Generally speaking, every few years in every town, a hot-button issue comes along that dominates debate for a while.
However, year in and year out, the budget process continues. Budgets reflect the issues of the day, but they don’t really care what people are yelling about; they are a priority all their own.
By the time town meeting rolls around, most of the decisions have been distilled down to an up or down vote.
For more input into the process, we recommend volunteering for the budget committee, or at least attending a budget committee meeting.
That’s when the petitioners for the town’s money come to state their case and you can apply the logic you use to make your own decisions to help your town prepare the menu for your fellow citizens.
It is not pretty, glamorous, or particularly exciting work, but it is vital – a vital service, and we salute the men and woman who take it on themselves either in developing a budget or combing through a proposal with a fine toothed comb on behalf of their fellow citizens.
