When it comes to Town Meeting, I voted with my feet a few years ago: I quit running for re-election. I'd been thinking about it for a few years before that. Debates on many issues had grown longer than useful and were often mean-spirited, with unwarranted suspicion of the motives of the people who do the day-to-day government of our town. Amherst's government includes a very broad cross-section of the community; almost without exception these are people doing their best, as they interpret that, for their town. Most Town Meeting members are there in the same spirit, and for the same purpose. But a small minority seemed to have other agendas. Sometimes the agenda seemed to be to defeat one particular proposal; sometimes it seemed to be to defeat anything put forth by a particular committee, office or person. When the general government is attacked as totally unrepresentative or corrupt in some unspecified way, despite the fact that the people running it have won the position (often re-elected) in town-wide elections, I thought it was time for the people challenging the proposal to stop and ask themselves whether they were truly representing anyone but themselves. While the garage debates and votes are obvious examples, the garage wasn't the only issue that generated excessive divisiveness.
For Town Meeting to function well, most of its members should be well-informed people with a general commitment to the town they live in but without a "bee in their bonnet." I found myself unwilling to continue trying to play that role, at least for now. I don't think any particular person is essential, certainly not me; but fewer and fewer people are stepping forward to serve in that way.
It's been a long time since we had contests throughout most of town for Town Meeting seats (even assuming we don't "count" the precincts where large percentages of the voters live in dormitories and are historically less likely to run for and vote in town elections). In this year's election, few precincts had any contest at all. Many candidates didn't bother to return the questionnaire from the League of Women Voters, which is the only means most of us have to distinguish the opinions of candidates.
Very few people who have jobs and families can afford the time to be a Town Meeting member. Especially if all the adults in the household have jobs. Even more so if the jobs are not in town (which is increasingly true) and people have to add commute time to the work time. The result is a self-selection process of volunteers, which tends toward a Town Meeting composed mostly of people with more time to spend on such things than others, and whose life experience is.
Town Meeting is not "representative" in a demographic sense. Most members are older than the town's demographics would suggest, even if we recognize that few students will have the time and inclination to serve. Where are the young to middle-aged adults? Where are the non-affluent retired? The owners of small businesses? The people whose ancestors have lived here for generations?
It's hard to know how good Town Meeting is at "representing" the opinions of Amherst's voters. Most residents don't know who their "representatives" are and how they behave and vote in Town Meeting. Reducing the number of members by half or two thirds doesn't solve that problem; it's still too many to keep track of.
Consequently, I am hoping the Charter Commission will come up with a different form of local government. I think they should keep the professional management (Town Manager and Finance Director, etc.) because they have served us very well and continue to do so. Particularly now, as budgets must be trimmed in response to the state's fiscal mess, we benefit from their steady and forward- looking guidance. Similarly, members of the boards and committees who are few in numbers and elected town-wide have generally been excellent and responsible stewards of our common good. While I've noticed that all legislative bodies, from Congress through state legislature to Town Meeting, seem to provide a forum for grandstanding, a small group of people who know they are responsible for running the place and that the town's citizens expect them to do a good job of it usually learn to work together for the common good. If people widely believe they aren't, they are unlikely to be re-elected.
No form of government is perfect, and none can protect us from either a sudden drastic decline in revenues or the election of a person who doesn't rise to the occasion. We need to distinguish between problems caused by the times we are in, and those caused or made worse by the way we make our decisions. Personally, I'm ready to try a different system.