I was recently lent a copy of John Gould’s New England Town Meeting: Safeguard of Democracy. Published in 1940, it is one of the earliest books – if not the first – to document the Town Meeting format, which is practiced in New England but almost nowhere else in the United States. In it, Gould describes a Town Meeting that bears little resemblance to Hopkinton’s:

“The whole family comes – mother and father to vote, and the children to listen and to learn how. Town Meeting Day begins after chores- the moderator is sometimes chosen as early as six-thirty in the morning. Events move on with balloting in the morning, lunch, appropriations in the afternoon, supper at six, and a Town Meeting dance at night. Commerce, industry, and schooling stop. The entire population – men, women, children – gather at Town House to deliberate on matters of government for the coming year.”

Gould accompanies his cheerful treatise with pictures of men puffing their pipes and sternly deliberating while their wives serve the meals. It is a testament to both direct, deliberative democracy and the reinforcement of traditional gender roles so common in publications of that era. 

History of Town Meeting

Record keeping in colonial New England was poor, but it is theorized that Town Meeting began as an adaptation of local vestry meetings held in 17th century England. The vestry (or church elders) were responsible for the financial decisions of the parish church, and early English settlers created parish-based governments based on their experience with those meetings. 

Michael Zucker, Professor of History at University of Pennsylvania, paints a somewhat darker picture than Gould. In his essay Mirage of Democracy: The Town Meeting in America, Zucker claims that Town Meeting was created as a way to enforce groupthink. Because the authority of the crown was in far-away England, and there was no legitimate local law enforcement, towns used Town Meeting to ensure conformity.

“Order in those eighteenth-century towns depended far more on public opinion than on the modest coercive measures at their disposal,” Zucker writes. “Effective action required a popular will approaching unanimity, and the work of the meeting was accordingly bent toward securing such unanimity. Harmony and homogeneity became – because they had to become – the routine realities of local life. The result was a kind of government by common consent, but such government was not democratic in any modern sense. It did not submit differences to the judgment of the majority. A majority would have implied a minority, and the towns could no more condone a competing minority by their norms than they could have constrained it by their police power.”

Unanimity was the order of the day in colonial New England, and it is a trend that has continued to the present day. Of the 48 articles proposed on the Hopkinton 2023 Annual Town Meeting warrant, all but 7 passed, and most with little debate and by a wide majority. Of the articles that experienced extensive debate at Town Meeting, it is notable that while almost an hour was devoted to an amendment to the town’s leash law very little discussion was accorded to the $113 million FY2024 Operating Budget.

As Zucker writes, “Democracy devoid of legitimate difference, dissent, and conflict is, of course, something less than democracy. Men who vote only as their neighbors vote have something less than the full range of democratic options.”

In modern democracies, voting is done in a private booth, so people are not subject to bullying and disapproval by their neighbors if they hold an opposing view. Town Meeting does not allow citizens to express their opinion without fear of reprisal. Public shaming by the majority is not democracy.

The Problem with Scale and Who Attends

There are several obvious problems with the town meeting format when scaled to larger groups. The first is that attendance is poor. According to the Town Clerk, over the course of both 2023 Annual Town Meeting nights only 712 (6%) of an eligible 11,500 registered voters checked in. 

Professor Jane Mansbridge of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University wrote “town meetings in Vermont and Massachusetts feature extremely low turnout in part because they last for a full working day, leading to disproportionate representation of seniors and non-working residents in the meetings.” Although Hopkinton’s Town Meeting is scheduled on consecutive weeknights, the problem remains: Affordable childcare is out of reach for some, and those that are willing and able to stay decide the fate of the rest. As Mansbridge rightly points out, those attending are often not working people or those with young families, which comprise the majority of Hopkinton’s electorate.

Another problem is the general disenchantment of the electorate.

“I don’t go to town meeting because I don’t think it changes anything,” said one Hopkinton mother, who wished to remain anonymous. “I’ve seen the process and seen them (Select Board) do the opposite of what the town wants, so what’s the point?”

Organization Chart for the Town of Hopkinton

The Board of Selectmen (or Select Board as it is now known) is charged with expansive control over town. According to the town charter, “the executive powers of the Town shall be vested in the Board of Selectmen.” The Select Board is the primary policy maker for the town, adopts and submits the town budget, and creates and manages committees that create policy for town offices. They are the executive of the town.

Importantly, the Select Board appoints the Town Manager, who has a large scope of control, ranging from Finance to Public Works to Youth & Family Services. The Town Manager is empowered to hire, fire, negotiate, and make policy changes as they see fit. The Select Board does not have direct operational control over the Town Manager’s departments, instead relying on the Town Manager’s report for updates. In essence, the executive’s hands are tied.

Within the Town, there are 28 appointed Boards and Commissions of varying size, with most members appointed by the Select Board. There are 13 elected Boards and Commissions.

The problem with this structure is that it has grown to be too large, and it is exacerbated by vacancies. For example. the Town Manager is currently acting as the acting Chief Financial Officer, a vital position that has been vacant since Tim O’Leary departed earlier this year. This level of responsibility is too much for one person to manage effectively, especially one who is unaccountable to the electorate.

A Government by Committee

Under the Town Meeting structure, Hopkinton has only one or two chances per year to change our zoning, appropriate funds, authorize bonding or do anything that requires legislation. So why do we maintain this seemingly inefficient form of government? Presumably because this is how it has always been done. In Massachusetts, both the General Laws and the constitution place strict limits on the circumstances and the process by which a town can change its Town Meeting form of government.

Hopkinton is essentially a government by committee, and the consequence is that decisions are made slowly and projects take a long time to complete. The Select Board is designated as the “executive” of the town, but this is an oxymoron; an executive is an inherently singular function.

Also absent is accountability. President Harry Truman famously had a plaque that read “The Buck Stops Here” on the Resolute desk. But in a committee structure, the buck stops nowhere, because one member can always hide behind another.

Take the most recent matter of the Upper Charles Trails Committee (UCTC). After months of deliberation, the Select Board recently voted to reinstate the UCTC, against the will of the voters at Town Meeting. “I disagreed, but I deferred to my colleagues,” said Select Board member Shahidul Mannan. Mannan ended up siding with the other members, making the vote unanimous. In fact, on every matter, almost all Select Board votes are unanimous. Presumably these agreements are made in Executive Session prior to their meetings, and Executive Session minutes are not released. Thus, the citizens are kept in the dark.

If this system were extended to the Federal level, it would be as if Congress (or one party of congress, to be precise) were responsible for all decision making in the country. There is no Executive check to their power, or any instrument of progress outside of them.

The Problem with the Extensive Use of Unpaid Volunteers

All elected and appointed boards and commissions in Hopkinton are comprised of unpaid volunteers. While civic service is an inherently noble quality, it presents challenges, namely in the quality of the individual candidates, the representation they offer, and competition for their time and attention. 

This presents the danger that some (not all) of these volunteers may have a vested interest in the outcome of decisions that are made, or may have joined in an attempt to influence those decisions. Another problem is lack of representation, as unpaid volunteers have little incentive to show up for meetings, devote sufficient time to making difficult decisions that require extensive research, and are less inclined to prioritize town matters over other issues in their lives. This in no way diminishes the dedication of our current volunteers, but it is also not the most efficient way to run a town or make impactful decisions.

Some boards and committees require their members to commit an extraordinary amount of time, and none more than the Select Board. Mannan estimates he spends between 20 – 30 hours per week between formal meetings, emails, research, and town events.

To be effective, a candidate for office in Hopkinton must be willing to sacrifice a lot of time for no pay, and in some cases, endure a healthy amount of criticism from the media and their constituents. Few working parents have the desire or ability to make those tradeoffs, and thus they are underrepresented at all levels of local government.

“The amount of time I spend varies widely depending on what’s going on,” said Nancy Richards-Cavanaugh, Chair of the School Committee. “On average I would say it’s about 10 hours per week. Summer tends to slow down, but between school reopening, the Elmwood School project, kicking off budget season and contract negotiations on the horizon it will be significantly more in September.”

Alternatives to Town Meeting

Of the 35,933 villages, towns, and cities in the United States, the Town Meeting format is practiced only in some parts of New England, comprising just 5% of all local governments.

Hopkinton is growing rapidly; our town now has more than 19,000 residents. With only 3% of the population attending Town Meeting, and far fewer vested with actual decision making power, now may be the time to consider transitioning to a form of city government, with an elected mayor and council. 

The City of Framingham converted in 2017. According to a Boston Globe article, “Under the new charter, the City Council will have nine district members serving two-year terms and two at-large members serving four-year terms. The mayor will replace the Board of Selectmen as the town’s chief executive, and the City Council, meeting at least monthly, will replace the representative Town Meeting.” 

The Secretary of State lists 13 cities in Massachusetts that have incorporated but opted to leave “Town of” in their name to avoid the baggage the word “city” implies. Amesbury, which is smaller than Hopkinton, became a city in 2012. The Town of Franklin is actually a city.

Other cities have found that the advantages of a paid mayor and council are numerous. Accountability is key; by virtue of their office, an elected mayor is forced to visit their constituents to learn and act on what is most important to them. They are also empowered to make decisions quickly and efficiently. Perhaps most importantly, by living in town, they wake up thinking about Hopkinton every day, and take it personally when they’re driving over potholes and damaged roads. This is their city, after all.

The city council is the legislative body for the town, moving initiatives and projects along quickly. Their mandate is to listen, study and act on behalf of their constituents. They are also paid; In Boston, each city council member receives half of the mayor’s annual compensation.

Conclusion

There are many obstacles and challenges to transitioning to a city form of government, the first being apathy. The voters that don’t show up to Town Meeting and are not engaged are likely to be the biggest beneficiary of this change. The voters that do show up are unlikely to want a change. They enjoy the idea that their voice matters, even if it doesn’t from a practical standpoint. 

Also challenging is the process itself: A citizen’s petition to elect a Charter Commission would need to be passed at Town Meeting, the charter must be rewritten, an affirmative vote at town meeting is needed to approve the new charter, and a vote would follow at the ballot box to elect the mayor and city council. There are many points of failure along the way; Framingham citizens attempted it three times before they were successful, and it was a close vote.

However, the more Hopkinton grows the more inevitable this change becomes. We can only hold on to the past for so long. Our antiquated form of government is not suitable for a fast-growing town. 

Peter Thomas is the Editor-in-Chief of HopNews.