A Third Option Beyond Traditional Town Meeting and SB2

By Thomas P. Caldwell

BRISTOL — The arguments are the same each year during public hearings on the potential adoption of RSA 40:13, commonly known as SB2.

Supporters will argue that switching to the Official Ballot Act will give more people a chance to vote because they will not be required to sit through a long business meeting, but can stop by the polling place at any point that is convenient on election day, and cast their votes by ballot. The period between the first and second session of town meeting will give people a chance to think about the discussion at the deliberative session before having to decide how to vote.

Those objecting will talk about the long tradition of town meeting, where people may arrive with their minds made up, but after learning the facts and hearing the debate, they may change their minds and make a better decision — something that will not happen if they simply show up to place an “x” on the ballot. Towns that have adopted the change find fewer people attending the deliberative session, so those casting their votes may have no idea why the article was offered, and vote it down.

So it went during the SB2 hearing before the Bristol Board of Selectmen on Feb. 22, with a divided audience and a divided board.

Young people and old people are no longer attending the long town meeting, residents said, and voting by ballot will open the process up to such people. Or will people vote only by their pocketbooks, having no idea of the importance of saying “yes” to some of the articles proposed?

Chairman Rick Alpers offered a third option — one he also noted last year — but he said he did not think the town was ready to adopt a town charter at this time.

A town charter, Alpers said, allows a town to craft its own town meeting process in a manner that fits that town. He said he believes that both the traditional town meeting and the Official Ballot Act are antiquated today, when people are so busy they no longer have the time to attend a long town meeting or to get familiar with what’s on the ballot.

Several New Hampshire towns have adopted charters to govern how their municipality works, including Derry, Merrimack, and Peterborough. While the first two have completely altered the way the town works by creating a town council to make all the decisions traditionally left to voters during town meeting, Peterborough preserved its board of selectmen and town meeting, but it holds not just a deliberative and a voting session, but also a “final open session” that allows voters who have turned down the proposed budget in ballot voting to come together again to adopt a final budget.

One of the issues people have with RSA 40:13 is the default budget — an operating budget that takes effect if voters reject the one proposed by the town. It is a simple formula, taking the prior-year budget and removing any one-time expenditures, then adding in contractual obligations (union contracts or bond payments, for example). However, people will sometimes disagree on what constitutes a one-time expenditure. The Newfound Area School District is embroiled in controversy over the administration’s decision to include capital improvement items that voters never weighed in on within the default budget because they had been identified on the district’s capital improvement plan.

The official ballot law does allow a special meeting to deal with the budget if the proposed one is defeated, but towns and school districts generally allow the default budget to take effect.

Peterborough’s solution was to schedule a final open session to deal with the budget, along with other articles that selectmen did not want to include in the first two meetings.

That example shows that there is a lot of latitude in what a town can decide with regard to exercising “the home rule power recognized under Part One, Article 39 of the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, consistent with the general laws of the State,” as Derry’s charter notes.

That is not to say that a town’s charter cannot be challenged. There have been court cases and even legislative action to deal with problems in some of those charters. And would the voters of Bristol be willing to forge a new approach, when, despite several attempts at adopting 40:13, they have not given that option a try yet?

There also is a question in some minds about the legality of the article if it should pass this year. The law requires a public hearing at least 15 days prior to the vote when someone petitions to adopt RSA 40:13. Selectmen had overlooked that requirement and hurriedly scheduled the public hearing for Feb. 22, but couldn’t get the notice in the newspaper until the 17th and didn’t post it on the town website until the 20th. They say they were legally covered by posting it at the Bristol Municipal Building and the Minot-Sleeper Library on Feb. 16, but the seven-day posting requirement generally does not count the day posted and the day of the hearing, so by that tally, they were two days short of the posting requirement.

When resident Paul Simard raised that point, asking whether someone could challenge the vote, Alpers said, “We were sharing the information in good faith. People can sue us at any time for any reason. I think we’re good.”

The selectmen later scheduled a second public hearing on SB2 for Thursday, March 1, at 6 p.m.

27 February 2018