Saturday Special Town Meeting

Congratulations to the selectboard for holding the upcoming special town meeting on a Saturday. Neither I nor anyone else knows if more people will come to a Saturday meeting, but it's worth a try. We'll see.

Of course, more or fewer people come to town meetings depending on how controversial the agenda is. So counting heads at the upcoming meeting may not prove anything.

But we desparately need to increase attendance at town meetings, so it's important to determine whether Saturday mornings are better or worse than, say, Tuesday evenings. I think the selectboard intends to ask those who come to the upcoming meeting which they prefer. That will likely prove that the people who come to a Saturday meeting have a preference for Saturday. Duh! Why not poll the populace to see what they prefer? I can think of several ways to do that: (1) Use the town's e-mail list. (2) Have voters fill out a questionnaire at the next election opportunity. (3) Send something out with tax bills.

I can already imagine the objections down at town hall. Sometimes I think we have an aristocracy in this town, not a democracy.