Originally Posted by fatlazyless
From letters to the editor, Laconia Daily Sun, Thursday, February 28,
2008
Peter Miller has served the town of Meredith as a selectman and was chairman as recently as December 2006, when he chose not to run for re-election.
Whether you agree or disagree with him on SB-2, you can tell from this letter that he very much cares about the Town of Meredith and about town government. fll
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Town officials need annual meetings to get their message out to the voters
To the editor,
The events leading up to Meredith's vote on Senate Bill 2 illustrate what is wrong with the SB-2 decision making process. Because this challenge to our current form of government will be decided on election Tuesday rather than town meeting Wednesday, there is no provision for voters to formally gather to discuss the pros and cons of SB-2 or to put some hard questions to the lead petitioners. Instead, information is transmitted in a haphazard way - letters to the editor, remarks made at Board of Selectmen meetings, and suchlike. That's poor preparation for a decision of this magntude.
Compare that to the way voters will decide whether to approve the fire station bond issue at the upcoming town meeting. A power point presentation of the proposed stations's plans and projected costs will be shown to all those who have assembled to vote. The discussion that follows will allow voters to ask tough, probing questions of selectmen, and to voice their sentiments pro and con. After the last person who wishes to speak has been heard, and only then, voters will decide the issue by secret ballot.
If Senate Bill 2 is enacted, this thorough and time-tested way of conducting business will be no more. All warrant articles will be decided the way Senate BIll 2 is being acted on this year. Yes, Senate Bill 2 does provide for a deliberative session, but these are very poorly attended in SB-2 towns because there is no vote to bring people out. Typically, only a tiny fraction of those who cast ballots on election Tuesday attend the deliberative session beforehand. In contrast, nearly 100-percent of those voting at Town Meeting listen to and/or participate in the deliberation that precedes each vote.
"But it's hard for our senior citizens to sit through a long evening meeting," say the SB-2 advocates. Well, let me tell you something. I'm one of Meredith's senior citizens. I have many physical infirmities, including hearing loss and a medical condition that causes my leg muscles to cramp if I sit too long in a chair. Yet I am so opposed to Senate Bill 2 that I would donate one of my Social Security checks to help finance the effort to dump SB-2 in the compost heap. If I can make it through a long town meeting, so can my fellow seniors. It may not be fun, but it is a vital civic duty, and it is participatory democracy at its finest. One evening a year is not an excessive sacrifice.
Town meeting insures thoughtful deliberation prior to voting. Year after year, I have been very impressed with the questions and concerns voiced by Meredith residents at town meeeting. We learn from each other at this annual gathering, and the various perspectives people express at the microphone act as a system of checks and balances.
The thing that scares me the most about SB-2 is that there are no checks and balances. Voters reach a decision somehow - because of what they read in the press, or because a friend of a friend of a friend said such-and-such, or because of what they overheard while eating breakfast at George's Diner, or because they hold a grudge against a town employee or official. With Senate Bill 2, it is much more likely that reaction, not reflection, will prevail. That is dangerous, because it leads to bad decisions.
Senate Bill 2 is favored by reactionaries who want no capital spending and no budget increase. If Senate Bill 2 had been enacted in Meredith six years ago, the police department would still be in that decrepit facility near the bowling alley, there would be no Community Center, and the fire station renovation would be headed for defeat. Why do I say that? Because town leaders would have had no effective means of explaining to voters why these capital projects were necessary, timely, and cost-effective, and because emotion would have prevailed over reason far too often in the voting booth.
Town meeting is the only official event that generates a large turnout. Most Board of Selectmen meetings are attended by a predictable few - the press, department heads, former selectmen and selectman wannabes, and people who have a vested interest in that night's agenda items. During the years I was selectman, the Board's annual budget and warrant hearings attracted almost no one.
When town officials can't get their message to the voters, it allows the critics to have an open field of play. Every town has a few self-appointed wisenheimers who bash elected and appointed officials as frequently as the rooster crows. You've published their diatribes, so you know what I mean. In time, the sheer repetition of these slams has an effect. They play on voters' emotions, and people assume that where there's smoke, there must be fire. The intent is to whip the public into a frenzy. There are voters who signed the SB-2 petition because they think Carol Granfield's gas allowance is too generous, or because they think the new police station should have a cell block facade, or because they are just plain mad at all the growth happening in town. If the fire station bond issue was being decided by SB-2 rules, they would take that negative attitude right into the voting booth, and it would be payback time, to hell with the consequences.
We need the checks and balances that town meetng provides. I ask every voter who shares my concerns to vote on election Tuesday and simply say NO to SB-2.
Thankyou for publishing this letter. There is still at least one more yet to come.
Peter Miller
Meredith
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