The Town Moderator and Select Board are seeking ways to make town meetings shorter and more efficient. To do this, they are introducing a consent calendar process at this year’s town meeting which will take place on Monday April 6th, and April 7th if needed. The consent calendar will group together warrant articles that traditionally were not controversial and there was no debate. However, if one citizen decides that they wish to discuss the article, they can tell the moderator that they would like to “hold” the article. The article would then be removed from the consent calendar and would be treated as a regular warrant article.
The consent calendar is not a new concept. Many towns such as Stowe, MA have been using the consent calendar at their town meetings for many decades, according to Wayland Town Moderator Miranda Jones. She said Stowe can list as many as 39 articles on their consent calendar. The Massachusetts Moderators Association recently published the fourth edition of ‘Town Meeting Time’ which recommends that the towns use a consent calendar at their town meetings.
Rather than use one consent calendar like most towns that are using it, the Select Board has created three calendars: financial, CPA and administrative. The articles within each category are grouped together by type and the approval vote required such as either a quorum or simple majority vote. Depending on the issue, the type of vote is mandated by state or local bylaws. For example, the state requires a two-thirds approval for zoning changes. The Select Board decides the order of all the warrant articles. Jones said that the intent of grouping the articles into three separate calendars is to simplify the process for residents who will be using this process for the first time. At the meeting, the moderator will introduce the consent calendar. There is no discussion unless a resident asks for a specific article to be held. There is a simple yes and no vote. If someone asks for the article to be held, the moderator will decide what to do. Jones said if it is a simple question, she might allow it to be answered. If she feels that it can be handled with a little more discussion, she could decide to use the abbreviated procedure with the article’s author giving a more detailed overview and then a vote would be taken immediately after or it could be treated as a regular article if more debate is warranted.
Jones emphasized that she will be outlining the consent calendar process at the beginning of town meeting and if anyone objects to an article in the consent calendar, it will be pulled out and treated as a regular article. She said that the only intent of doing this is to simplify the process and condense the meeting. The Select Board has been using a consent calendar for their meetings, according to Jones. However, she is concerned that some people in town might have a problem with this new process because change can be difficult. Miranda Jones said, “we are hoping to make town meeting more efficient so more people will come and feel that they are not wasting their time.” She is hoping to see the same progressive attitude that Wayland residents exhibited when they embraced electronic voting and voted overwhelmingly multiple times for a remote town voting. Wayland is one of the two towns with open town meetings in Massachusetts that petitioned the state for remote voting, according to Jones. She said, “if her legacy is Wayland having one annual town meeting night and remote voting, her work will be done.”
