Pre-education as to "How Town Meeting Works"-user friendly

• Clear presentations

• Debate: its real democracy. I am concerned about splitting into discussion and vote. People may skip the debate session and come only to vote based on LT, Squirrel, web pages, friend talks, etc as well as the few who go to hearings. We will lose a richness.

  
  

Many other towns record TM and make for easy review of others-very informative.

This neutral body (which at one time was the League of Women Voters) would only be instituted when there are clear sides. Just an idea.

At recent town meetings, we have experienced extended A/V related delays trying to have three different locations for microphones. This is complicated, and perhaps unnecessary. Could we only have residents make public comment from one location, not three, so we can avoid A/V delays?

If the ‘remote’ locations for Town Meeting are actually just in the same complex / address - could we legally just have public comment in the auditorium and not for example, in the Brooks Gym?

While it's true "town meeting may be the most direct form of democracy", in this day and age it results in a highly un-representative swath of the town making decisions for the whole town.

Put simply 600 of the town's 6000 residents (10%) decide on town issues. And if someone were to parse the data, it would likely show that 80% of those 600 are retired citizens without similar time constraints as younger families with kids in schools and sports. This leads to lopsided discussions and views on current issues.

It would be interesting to see if the other 5400 residents would agree with the decisions made by the 600 if given a chance to weight in.

Many times during the last town meeting, the moderator went out of order, didn’t fully take into account voice votes from the other rooms (when voice voting should not have even been permitted in the first place since you can’t get a true sense of a majority in multiple rooms that can’t be heard as one), and she made up rules as she went. Furthermore, the current moderator had a clear bias against certain people and cut their mics off, while allowing others to speak without limit.

It’s time for a new moderator.

If not review how does this impact the Town Meeting process?

Reach out to the people have expressed being disenfranchised and at least one key topic of this group could be to address what has happened in the past and how to improve.

Citizens should not walk away feeling like their voices were not heard- yet this is what happens time and time again in Lincoln.

Our rules need to allow and encourage a discussion from a variety of voices, and give citizens a full picture of a topic. The dissenting voices need to be given an equal amount of podium time and presentation ability.

Access via remote participation

Voting via ballot or clicker to minimize societal pressures

TM should be recorded, and voters could have 24 hours to vote via ballot

Increase options to increase voter turn-out: 1) discussion at one meeting; 2) voting at a separate meeting.

(What works for some may not work for others. You own your vote but...some people may not vote their conscience if they must speak.)

• What about representative town meeting?

• What about being a city?

• Turnout should be a KPI

• formal

• organized groups

• podium

• public comment period

No rubber stamp!

• Transparent (release all applications)

• Encourage diverse views

• Preferably lay people (no committee members)

• in pre-meeting materials

• reinforce during meeting

• large enough

• focused/clean + simple

Do we really want everyone engaged, or just those who are retired without kids andfree time on their hands.

Too many left early from our most recent town-wide meeting, and quite a while prior to the agenda being completed,  

And, all the while other voting proceeded, despite there being far fewer remaining in attendance during that time.

The town was smaller and the issues to be decided were possibly easier when I started attending some 50 years ago.

I am not sure that a winning case can still be made for hand counting any more.

It's not clear to me why people need to see how other people vote. Let's try private clicker voting. I wonder if Barack Obama would have been elected if all votes were public. Would that significant, important milestone have been accomplished, if people had not had privacy in the voting booth?

1) There is good publicity about when the meetings are. I appreciate that they use different channels (signs, announcements, etc) to make sure. people know.

2) I appreciate the efforts to move quickly and vote on decisions that already have strong consensus.

Voting - I would prefer to vote anonymously.

             A. Procedures for Certain Special Articles

                            1. These special procedures (“Impartial Discussion Procedures”) are to apply after receipt of a petition signed by a number of residents equal to a substantial percentage of the attendance at Town Meeting the previous year (say 20%) stating that these Impartial Discussion Procedures are appropriate for discussing a particular article (a “Special Article”)                  

                            2. Spokesperson(s) of such a grassroots group in opposition to the resolution put forth by a Town Board on the Special Article shall have 10 minutes of time to speak from the podium with the opportunity to show slides

                            3. If more than one group of petitioners with enough signatures wish to speak for or against the Special Article, allocation of who goes first shall be by coin toss or other impartial method  

                            4. A non-governmental entity seeking podium access must submit a petition signed by the same number of individual residents as required for a grassroots group and shall observe the same time limit as a grassroots group

             B. General Procedures for All Town Meetings

                            5. Board members comprising a substantial portion of a Board's members (say 20%) who oppose a Board’s resolution on any article shall have an amount of time to speak from the podium with slides, equal to the amount of time taken by the presentation and remarks of the majority members of the Board; a Board member or members comprising less than such percentage who oppose(s) a Board’s resolution shall have 5 minutes of time to speak from the podium without slides

                6. Any Town Board or Committee which wishes to support or oppose an article shall have 5 minutes to speak at the podium without slides; allocation of who goes first shall be by coin toss or other impartial method; except that the Finance Committee may speak with slides and without time limit                       

                            7. Majority members of a Board shall never purport to speak on behalf of minority members

                            8. The Moderator’s meeting to go over Town Meeting procedures and set the order of speakers at Town Meeting in accordance with these rules shall be open to the public with adequate prior notice, remote participation and promptly available video recording

                     9. No additions to or changes in the order of speakers established at the Moderator’s meeting shall be made without a 2/3 vote at Town Meeting

                   10. All persons speaking at Town Meeting must clearly disclose or disclaim any financial or other personal  interest in the matter when they begin speaking 

• Accessibility and Participation: Ways to make Town Meetings more accessible, by considering how to engage people with families, scheduling conflicts, mobility issues,  hearing impairments, etc. 

  
  

• Process Transparency and Inclusion: Ways to improve the Town Meeting inclusivity, such as allowing dissenting voices to present, providing clearer guidance, and ensuring transparency regarding the financial interests of speakers.

  
  

• Modernization and Efficiency: Ways to improve the Town Meeting process, both before and after the meeting, to make it more efficient, leveraging new available methods for communication and meeting operation (e.g. clickers) 

Assume that the change is not going to happen all at once and make a few demonstrable changes to address concerns in each of these key areas and iterate and adapt.

I would recommend:

- Splitting Town Meeting into a presentation section and a voting section (Accessibility, Participation, Efficiency)

- Defined guidelines for presentations for both a pro / con view (Process Transparency and Inclusion)

- How to employ clickers in Town Meeting (Modernization and Efficiency)