OR….Ask our Selectmen to have Town Counsel lay out the process for making the change. Anne Warner
- Sent from iPhone. Typed by thumb. Excuse misspellings! On Dec 13, 2023, at 6:17 AM, Sara Mattes <samat...@gmail.com> wrote:
Again, those who want change need to organize, study, propose.
Registering ideas & “fixes” on LT are not productive, in and of themselves. They are interesting, but by themselves, will not lead to change.
Pull together all that has been thrown out there, have a preliminary meeting-just advertise it on LT- and get a room at Town Office, or Pierce House or the library. Take it from there. Come up with a citizens petition that offers something based on law and good practice.
Lincoln is a volunteer community-step up and be grass-roots group for “improved” town decision -making .
It would be a great contribution to make as we are about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the battle in April, 1775-be revolutionary and find a better way to run Town Meeting… if there is one. But, don’t be surprised if some of the radical change proposed is neither legal nor viable.
We will never know until you take the next step.
On Dec 12, 2023, at 9:47 PM, David G <djgi...@gmail.com> wrote:
I am in agreement with the writers calling for changes in the Town Meeting. I stayed for the entire 7 hours of the last meeting but left completely upset with the abuse of my time and that of others. · The last meeting was not representative—500 people deciding key issues on the future of the town out of almost 5000 voters- · More people might come if meetings
were run well and efficiently—3 hours maximum · Voting software or using electronic keypads would have cut the
meeting time significantly
However, the issues are more than just adding electronics. The meeting process needs to change. · Efficient facilitation could have cut
the meeting to 3 hours. Managing time efficiently involves allowing 15 minutes to provide the overview of a topic or position, not
letting all endorsers of a particular point of view speak or allowing speakers like the management team from the
Commons to cavalierly run over their time and make it a joke that they did this. · Perhaps we can have a rule like checking in with the audience after 15 speakers that comment at 2
minutes each, (including speakers for each position) then ask if someone wants to call the question · Use something simple like a buzzer or a bell to cut off
speakers at their allotted time limit
If people believe the meeting will be
efficiently run, more will show up or stay. If speakers believe that the meeting rules are enforced, they will stay within those time limits. I have been at other meetings where people from Town committees seem to feel they can talk as long as they like. While I respect their dedication and hard work, presentations can be shorter and stay within limits that keep the overall meeting time reasonable. Having said all this, I think there should be more votes on key issues and that Town meeting which is a wonderful tradition should be a means to educate people and perhaps to narrow ballot choices. I believe that the founders of Lincoln meant for things to evolve in order to protect true and widespread participation. We don't need to keep a tradition that prevents many from being able to have a voice in their future.
David Giber
I’m 100% in agreement in purchasing electronic voting devices. Valerie Fox is also in agreement. We lost close to two hours at the recent Special Town Meeting waiting for votes to be counted. Many left after first vote due to timing issues. Sent from my iPhone Peter and Andy,
Thank you for detailing a plan for revampment of our voting system that makes so much sense. It really is a no-brainer. And the percentages broken down by age that Peter provided are quite telling.
Kind Regards,
Scott Clary
617-968-5769
Sent from a mobile device - please excuse typos and errors A town meeting is an all day plus affair which disenfranchises many younger voters with families and other voters who are unable to attend all day meetings.
At our last special town meeting in early December we had 878 voters check-in with the following distribution of voters by age. | 18-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60-69 | 70-79 | 80+ | | 2% | 5% | 14% | 16% | 23% | 24% | 16%
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With only 640ish cast ballots for preference votes for the Community Center and HCA rezoning, we lost 16/% of our checked-in voters as many didn't stay to participate in both important votes. Please note that only 21% of the vote is 49 or under.
With a poor representation of our younger residents, We need to revamp our Town Meetings to better engage our 4876 registered voters. Certain votes require 2/3 of a town meeting and with such poor voter turnout, the power of a few well organized groups can dominate the decisions of the town unjustly.
I propose 1) The town should purchase electronic voting devices to speed up all town meetings. At least 60 towns in the commonwealth already successfully use these devices. I bet we could save at least a couple of hours at each town meeting by using this proven technology. List of Mass Towns
2) We should explore Andy Wang's earlier suggestion of separating the debate/amend parts of a Town Meeting from the voting part. The town should create a working group to explore the many different ways to increase voter participation at Town Meetings. Maybe we can even get this new style of Town Meeting ready for our March meeting. Many towns like Concord have town meetings that last several days and have even poorer voter participation than ours Concord Town Meeting Participation. The working group should explore separating the time consuming parts of a Town Meeting from the voting part. The first day of the Town Meeting could work through, amend and debate all contentious warrants up to an actual vote. At a certain point when a warrant is ready to vote, the moderator should table the vote until the continuation of the 2nd day of the town meeting. Information about the 1st day's work will be posted online with a video that voters would be able to review. The 2nd day of only voting would be a couple of days after the first and begin at a set time and be finished hopefully after only spending a couple of minutes per vote if the Town purchases electronic voting devices.
Peter Buchthal Weston Rd
As of March, according to the election results. <29AFF794-562A-4589-B5F3-D20DB548516B.png>
Andy
5000 voters are on record
I thought there were about 5000 residents, not voters.
Does anyone know the actual number of voters?
Most towns do NOT do this.
Laws which govern Open Town Meeting towns are the determining factors.
Perhaps all who want to come up with some new concepts should get together, like LRHA, and research and propose to the town.
That would be really instructive and constructive.
March will have a ballot, in addition to the TM vote -to approve the $$ for the Community Center.
One could skip TM and simply vote at the ballot box the following Monday.
Again, I urge all who are interested in this issue to form a study group and see what options are available.
I couldn't disagree more...we need to make voting accessable...time for change Sara.. time for change now. Let us vote electronically...all of us remotely. C'mon most towns do it now.
New comers including my family all recognize this!
The system is sooo antiquated.
Join us now before the march town meeting fails us again! Again and again and again!
As a good friend said at STM we are not spending our money wisely! You know that...a school project for 30M turns into 100 M. Driven by current Lincoln politics including selects. Yikes!
Now RLF is bankrupt? What's going on here. We're in a tailspin. Any ideas?
Garrick,
Town Meeting is open to all who care enough to attend.
It not a drive-by!
When people make noise about wanting a secret ballot at a ballot box, there is no evidence that indicates a huge leap in participation!
I don’t like the way thing unfolded or the (predictable) outcome, but it was not because voting was not available tall.
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