Thursday, January 15 Last day (5:00 P. M.) to file petition requesting that an article be placed on the Warning for Annual Town Meeting and Unified School District (47 days preceding election). Approx. 469 (5%) signatures of registered Brattleboro voters required. 17 VSA 2642
Thursday, January 22 First day to post Warning for Annual Town Meeting and Unified School District (not more than 40 days preceding election) 17 VSA 2641 (a)
The Brattleboro Selectboard held their first regular meeting in over a month. Top issue was Groundworks, who came to give an overview of recent stats and projects. People seemed most interested in a new project to build 40 beds near Morningside, and safety issues.
The other big discussion was about possible changes to the Charter. The results of the 2.5 years of Charter Revision Commission meetings were somewhat enhanced and overshadowed by members of the public being confused, asking to slow down, wanting consideration of other options such as certified petitions, potential petitions, special and regular meetings, informational meetings, educational programs, and legal issues.
The board made the firm decision to wait until their next regular meeting, not the listening session, to decide whether to discuss putting it on an agenda at a meeting in October to consider holding a special election on November.
Responding to comments to my post about RTM on Sept 17th:
Since last read comments remain most in mind I shall respond first to the statement that you “could buy the argument that RTM members were more informed if about 140 attended Selectboard meetings.” First, it isn’t clear if you are saying that all 140 should attend all 25 or so meetings each year or some members attend some. The next obvious question is: how many SB meetings should be required of voters choosing to attend an Open mtg? How would we ascertain this in either case? But we should put this aside because it gets into enactment details before we have a goal to act upon. There is a deeper implied issue. Should there be any qualifications at all?
In the first part of this examination of RTM and democracy it was demonstrated that RTM is in fact more representative now than it has ever been. In this part we compare direct democracy to representative democracy in the context of RTM. Open town meeting versus representative town meeting.
Virtually the entire body of literature on the subject of political democracy agrees on one thing. Direct democracy is ideal but it only works in a small body (say 10 to 15). This is because everyone can participate directly. Everyone can speak. Every view can be heard. But in larger bodies, all agree, democracy is better achieved through representation because, given the fact that only a limited number of people can participate systems and standards can be set up to enrich the quality of participation. Serious representatives working in a sound and democratic meeting structure will produce decisions close if not the same as those in a direct democracy. Even in a group of ten decisions will likely not represent the views of every member. A perfect decision, 100% agreement, is rarely achieved. Democracy simply tries to get as close as possible.
The next Charter Revision Commission [1] will meet Thursday, July 17, 2025 at 6:15pm in the Selectboard Meeting Room and also on Zoom (the agenda [2] contains the Zoom link) Meetings are also being planned for August.
As you may be aware the Charter Revision Commission is recommending that the Brattleboro form of government be changed from Representative Town Meeting (RTM) to Open Town Meeting (OTM). A survey, the results of which are available online with percentages [3] show a preference for OTM [173 to 84].
At its June 4, 2025 meeting, the Commission voted 6-0 to approve a motion “that the Commission is committed to developing a plan to replace Representative Town Meeting with a system that would include an Open Town Meeting.”
The Brattleboro Selectboard learned what the Brattleboro Charter Commission has been working on regarding the form of town governance and other possible changes to the Charter. The Commission has put over two years of work into this and the Chair seemed quite interested in being able to edit whatever they present, such as the form of town government, when it comes before the board again in September.
The next big discussion was about the old Hinsdale bridges. Hinsdale sent some semi-unanticipated reps to read Brattleboro the riot act. They seemed to take special glee in pointing out just how terrible Brattleboro’s problems are, and wanted to know if the town would agree that the bridges should be destroyed or sold. A split vote at the end of the discussion means Brattleboro does not surrender in the battle
