Town Meeting: A 'Newbie’s' Insight

As many of you know, last night kicked off the season of Norwood Town Meetings (NTM). This was my first experience with NTM and I will share my thoughts as these meetings progress over the next few weeks. In this post, I will focus in on the experience from a “newbie’s” point of view.

First, I’d like to give kudos to the town elected officials and staff who organize and run the meetings. The process to enter and get settled was seamless and very organized. The ONLY knock I have… they started twenty minutes late. Okay, I know, it is only twenty minutes, but a lot of people are taking time out of their schedules to be on time and in some cases get a babysitter to partake in this great process. So my feedback: Let’s try and start on time or be like a professor and be at a maximum ten minutes late!

For those who are not aware, last NTM’s focus was a list of 29 articles to be approved for the FY12 budget, not the FY13 budget. There was a lot of shuffling of funds and nothing was taken from “free cash.” I won’t focus on that today but will on a later post. Today, I will focus on the experience.

The meeting kicked off and as a NTM member, you have the ability to speak on every issue if you feel the need. You simply raise your hand, get recognized by the moderator and state your question and/or statement. I have to say, it takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of your peers and speak up. There was a good number of NTM members who asked questions, made some statements and raised great ideas. There is one gentleman who was extremely well spoken and made very valid points. I even got up and asked a question and made a statement. I figured why not just dive right into this great process? And for anyone who spoke up last night, nice job!

As I sat listening, voting, listening and voting... I noticed something that did make me wonder how effective town meeting is? I’d say at the most, 25 percent of the NTM members sincerely had a vested interest in the topics at hand. The disclaimer here is, I could be totally wrong with this assessment, but that was my general observation. I will say there were a few topics that did come up and there was great debate, insights and questions, yet the motions were still passed! There were times when people would get upset because the topic would “drag on” and “we just need to pass the article through.” I will admit, I did fall in this camp for one of the topics but it made me realize, NTM’s job is to scrutinize all articles no matter how trivial they seem! To my point above, it also takes great courage to stand up and be heard!

I’d like to rally my fellow NTM members and say we need to pay attention to the various articles no matter how trivial they seem. Money is money, even if it’s a dollar savings. We need to be wary of helping our town save ANY money possible. Also, speak up no matter what your thought is! Let’s faced it, we are all nervous, scared or worried about what people will think, but when you stand up and ask that question or make a point, it feels good! There were a few folks around me who had very valid points but did not speak up!

Finally, to Mr. Hern: I know there are people in the audience who are your “go to” motion to question folks. Your job is to moderate and you do a stellar job! However, I did notice on a few issues some folks were left in limbo and could not get their opinion out there. I get it, we want to keep the meeting moving but at the same time, we should represent our town to the highest level possible! I trust your judgment, but sometime we have to let people be heard! Again, I’d like to stress your job is not easy and I fully understand that you have to keep the meeting/topics moving.

As the next few town meetings unfold, I will blog on the various issues and give you my view into NTM. Being one of a few “newbies,” I will say this experience has been great thus far! Anyone who was been considering NTM in the future, I’d say definitely do it! Your voice matters and in this forum, it actually will be heard! Until next time....