To add to our continuing look at town government and annual town meetings, let’s head back to see the news of May 8, 1903. From the Phoenix:
Village Meeting as Exciting as a Quaker Meeting – Tax of 40 Cents Voted With About 30 Present
Thirty men transacted the business of the annual village meeting Tuesday, with the exception of the election of the officers, making provision in three minutes for the expenditure of about $20,000, which is at the rate of over $6,500 a minute. Stated another way, each man voted away over $650, provided all voted. Of these 30 men, the officials, policemen, ballot clerks, etc., made necessary by the Australian ballot system, numbered 23, leaving an audience of seven, composed of Joseph Jones, William Martin, Charles Endlich, Harry Rowe, C.C. Fitts, Frank Mills, and W.A. Gilbert, the two latter being newspaper men.
The meeting opened at 9 o’clock, when Clerk W.D. Perry called to order and read the warrant. Then the voting began and dragged wearily along until 2 o’clock. At no time were there more than a dozen men in the hall, besides the officers and clerks. Chairman Blodgett nearly fell asleep and the clerks yawned and stretched their limbs between the brief periods of service. It was one of the tamest meetings ever to be held in Brattleboro.
At 2 o’clock Chairman Blodgett turned the ballot box and drafted a number of clerks to count the votes as there were not present enough members of the board of civil authority to make a respectable showing. While the votes were being counted the remaining business was transacted by the small audience before mentioned. The reports of the village officers as printed and distributed were accepted and adopted, it was voted to raise a tax of 40 cents on a dollar of the grand list, as recommended by the bailiffs, to pay the expenses of the village for the coming year, and an appropriation of $500 was made for the First Regiment band for a series of 16 open-air concerts during the coming summer.
A voter had it in mind to move that the bailiffs be paid something for their services but it was discovered that the warrant for the meeting did not contain an article providing for the transaction of “other business.”
Chairman Blodgett announced the result of the ballot as follows:
Whole number of votes, 85; for bailiffs, E.W Blodgett 80, L.W. Hawley 85, R.C. Bacon 81, C.R. Crosby, 83, L.M Howe 85; for clerk and treasurer, W.D. Perry 81; for collector of taxes, R.E. Gordon 83; for chief engineer, H.W. Sanders 81; for auditor, C.A. Harris 82.
