Westport Town Meeting

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This page includes some of my thoughts on the Town Meeting process, how it can be improved and elaboration of the reasons behind some rules and procedures. Your feedback is welcome. If you have a question of general interest you would like answered here, please ask. Email me by clicking HERE.  Thanks for your interest.

Steven Fors, Moderator

Items addressed below include:

 

Rules of Westport Town Meeting

Rules of Town Meeting exist to guarantee and orderly, dignified, fair discussion of issues leading to informed votes and good decisions. We all deserve the respect and courtesy of our neighbors and owe them the same. All rules will be politely, but firmly enforced for the benefit of all.

Addressing the meeting

  • Wait to be recognized (given the floor) by the Moderator
  • Begin by stating your name
  • Speak only to the motion before the meeting at the moment
  • No personal speech- you may not speak about other persons or to other persons. You may reference the ideas of others and comment on them. You may not reference the person or comment on his or her character, motivation, etc.
  • Rude or disrespectful speech will not be tolerated
  • While all may speak on a motion as many times as they like, no one may speak twice until everyone who wishes to has spoken once
  • Speakers are limited to 5 minutes
  • Ten minute presentations are allowed by prior arrangement with the Moderator. Such presentations must be supported by written or projected visual aids.

Questions

Speakers may ask a question of another person in the hall, but that question must be addressed through the Moderator. For example “I have a question through Moderator (or the chair) for Town Counsel”. Dialog between two persons is not allowed.

Calling the question

A speaker may not participate in debate and finish their comments with a motion to call the question. Such a motion must be the only thing the speaker says on that trip to the microphone.

Amendments

VERY simple amendments to a motion that change only a word or two or a number can be moved verbally. All other amendments must be presented to the Moderator in writing.

Handouts

Printed information can be left on the table by the door for voters to read if the following rules are followed:

  • Must be approved in advance by the Moderator
  • Must be left on the table for optional pick up. May not be distributed by hand.
  • Must identify the author(s)
  • Must be informational
  • Must conform to rules of Town Meeting speech

No other literature may be distributed within the high school building.

Reconsideration

Announcement of intent to reconsider will be accepted as a “point of order”.   Proponents of reconsideration must convince the Moderator that reconsideration will offer some significant value to the meeting beyond re-stacking the hall or re-hashing work already done or the motion to reconsider will be disallowed.

Further rules of Town Meeting are found in Westport’s by-laws, in the hand–out at the entrance to the meeting and in the book Town Meeting Time, published by the Massachusetts Moderator’s Association.

Letter to all TM article sponsors

 April 4, 2006

  

Dear :

There are two things I want for Town Meeting:

  1. for the voters to make well informed decisions and
  2. for the meeting to move as quickly as possible without sacrificing #1

I write to enlist your help in achieving those goals. 

I am sure you have put considerable time and energy into the matter(s) you are presenting to this year’s Town Meeting. Preparing your article is only half the battle. If you cannot convince the voters of the merits of your proposal, your efforts in its preparation are wasted.

 Your proposal may sail through Town Meeting without debate. It may take two full nights to decide. If you are confident your article faces smooth sailing, I suggest you do no more than prepare yourself to answer any questions that may arise.

 If you anticipate facing opposition, more preparation is necessary. What follows are my recommendations for a complex proposal that will face strong opposition. Please consider carefully how much of the following you think is necessary for your proposal and do what’s needed.

 1-      If you are a committee- appoint a person or persons to prepare a brief, concise presentation in support of your proposal

2-      Prepare that presentation as soon as possible following the guidelines suggested below

3-      Test the presentation on someone who knows little about your issue. Ask for and act on their feedback.

4-      Send a written copy to me for posting on the westporttownmeeting.com website. I will publicize its presence there.

5-      Prepare a Power Point presentation for Town Meeting and deliver it to me on a CD

 In preparing your presentation I strongly suggest you include all of the following that apply:

1-      What is the problem your article seeks to address? This may be obvious to you, but much less so to the public. People are motivated to act by fear of bad things and desire for good ones. Explain clearly what bad thing you will diminish or avoid, or what good thing you will bring about. The rest of your presentation is pointless if you do not win people over here.

2-      Why is your solution/proposal the best way to achieve the desired end? What specific impact will it have on the problem? Are there other ways? Why are they not as good?

3-      What is the cost? Not just in money, but in every imaginable way, loss of choice, increased bureaucracy, inconvenience, etc.

4- What are the foreseeable objections to your proposal? Why do you find them unconvincing? This is where you can do the Town Meeting process more good than anywhere else. If you tell the whole story, including both sides, the need for further discussion is minimal. The more you leave out, the more ammunition you offer your opponents.

I will not help you craft arguments for your proposal. I will help you in any way I can to organize your arguments, condense them, prepare presentations to support them and publicize the information prior to Town Meeting. In other words I will not contribute to the content of your presentation, but will help all I can with its form.

I understand the time and energy limitations you face. While this may seem like an added burden, I suggest it to protect the good work you have already done from going to waste. If voters do not understand your proposal they are unlikely to adopt it.

 I welcome your comments and feedback. I thank you for all your good work. Please contact me if I can help you in any way.

 Sincerely, 

 

Steven Fors, D.C.

Moderator

 

Cc: Planning Board

Conservation commission

Board of Selectmen

Water and Sewer Committee

Public Safety Complex Committee

Alternate Energy Committee

Capital Improvement Planning Committee

Board of Assessors

Fire Chief

Collector of taxes

Town Beach Committee

Cable Advisory Committee

Personnel Board

 

Effective Speaking at Town Meeting

Despite how clever we may think we are, studies have proven over and over that humans are not very good at following and understanding spoken word that runs longer than a few sentences. A little preparation will help you make your point in a way that people understand and that moves them to your point of view. Here are a couple of ideas for making your speech at Town Meeting get you the results you want:

  • Jot down notes: bring a pen and jot down the one or two key points you want to make. Take a minute to organize on paper how to express them.

  • Use the time honored formula good public speakers use: tell them what you are going to tell them, tell it to them, then tell them what you told them. In other words state your key point or points (two at the most) as briefly and concisely as you can (one or two sentences). Expand on them for a minute or two. Sum up and repeat the key points.

  • Speak clearly and at an easy pace

 

The Importance of Being Informed- Public Hearings

Most complex and/or controversial articles brought before town meeting are addressed in public hearings by the board or committee that proposes them. The Conservation Commission will hold (or has held, when you read this) public hearings on their proposed Wetland Protection By-Law. The Community Preservation Council will hold public hearings on all their proposed expenditures. And so on. Most of these hearings will be televised and re-broadcast. Effective participation in Town Meeting begins with attending or watching these hearings. If we wait until Town Meeting to become informed about the issues two bad things are likely to happen:

1-     We will drag Town Meeting out for hours in a rehash of information already presented at the hearings

2-     We will not get all the information we need to vote wisely- we will have to decide on the  abbreviated information presented at Town Meeting rather than the complete info available at the hearings.

Yes, I have a job and a family also and I understand the real world difficulties involved in this. The better we do in becoming informed, the better our Town Meeting will function.

 

Reconsideration

Westport’s by-laws state:

0201.               The procedure at Town Meetings shall be governed by the rules of practice contained in "Town Meeting Time" except as modified by these By-Laws. 

One of the parliamentary procedures described in Town Meeting Time is Reconsideration. A motion to reconsider proposes to re-visit a previously voted item. If passed, it effectively annuls the previous vote and re-opens the matter to further debate and a new vote.

Reconsideration has limited usefulness for a well-behaved assembly. It makes sense only if:

1-     Previously unavailable information arises that, had it been available at the time of the vote, may have altered the outcome, or

2-      It would allow the meeting to address the passed or defeated question in a slightly different way that may come closer to expressing the will of the meeting than did the original vote

3- To correct an error that, if uncorrected, would thwart the will expressed by the original vote

Motion to reconsider for the purpose of “stacking” the hall at another time to change the outcome of a vote the meeting properly debated and decided, while legal, is a “dirty trick” that runs counter to the principles and welfare of Town Meeting.

Westport has a vague, poorly constructed by-law regarding reconsideration that reads:

0209.               No motion to reconsider or rescind a vote on an article, line item or any other matter shall be in order unless the intention to move for a reconsideration or rescinding is given within twenty minutes of defeat or passage of the Article and before adjournment of the session. 

There is no proper parliamentary form defined in Town Meeting Time or anywhere else for “giving notice of intent to reconsider”. Must one have the floor to do so? Is it in order when another motion is on the floor? In consultation with town counsel my resolution to this dilemma is this:

Announcement of intent to reconsider will henceforth be accepted as a “point of order”. This means a voter may arise at ANY time during the meeting, interrupt a speaker and say “Mr. Moderator, I rise to a point of order.” The Moderator will respond “what is your point of order?” To which the voter may respond “I announce intention to reconsider Article X.”  This will meet the first requirement for reconsideration. This procedure provides previously unavailable protection to those moving for reconsideration. This is balanced by a second requirement that will place a greater burden on proponents of reconsideration. They must then convince the Moderator that reconsideration will offer some significant value to the meeting beyond re-stacking the hall or re-hashing work already done. Failure to do so will result in the motion to reconsider being  disallowed.