Many Chichester residents carved out their whole Saturday to participate in a marathon-length town meeting, where conversations around fiscal responsibility took center stage.
The meeting lasted eight hours with multiple secret-ballot votes on different warrant articles.
The question of whether to establish a municipal budget committee elicited heated comment from many residents before being rejected. Some residents worried the move would take power from voters.
“I put this forward because I feel like we have been talking about fiscal responsibility for quite a while,” said Robyn LeBreton, incoming town treasurer and current Budget Advisory Committee member. “And when I think about fiscal responsibility, I think of kind of a separation of powers, if you will, or the checks and balances type system.”
The current Budget Advisory Committee has no real authority over the budget, she said. LeBreton and other advocates of the warrant article hoped to see residents hold more power over the budget in the coming years.
While LeBreton brought the proposal to provide checks and balances, others felt it would do the opposite.
Tammy Jameson felt the committee could prevent residents from amending the budget to their wishes, given the rule that they can only reduce or add 10% to the total bottom line at town meeting. If the Budget Committee cut something too far in advance, then residents wouldn’t be able to add enough money back in.
“We have an advisory budget committee. We have selectmen. We heard today that they don’t agree and were allowed to make our choice as voters,” Jameson said. “This is taking power away from us and putting it in the hands of nine people, who, today, are going to be elected.”
She and others disagreed with the clause of the warrant article that mandated electing the budget officers at the meeting, arguing that it wouldn’t give all qualified candidates a chance to put themselves forward. Likewise, several residents voiced concern about finding enough committed volunteers to staff the committee, given the ongoing trouble of doing so with other committees.
Resident Jon White said the municipal budget committee would help bridge the gap between the town budget and the school budget, since members would work on both, whereas each entity currently has an advisory committee with little power other than to offer suggestions. While residents vote on the two budgets on different days, they’re part of one “community budget,” he said.
White described the process of budgeting for municipal needs as being “very virtuous.”
“We’re doing the hard work of trying to figure out, ‘Okay, we have a certain level of services we want to provide to our citizens, and we want to do it in a way that we can afford,’” he said. “So in particular, we don’t drive our most vulnerable residents out of town because they’re on fixed incomes, so they can’t afford to do it. That is a hard balance.”
A warrant article to create a municipal ethics policy and board proved logistically complicated from a legal standpoint and required changes to the wording before eventually being tabled. Other warrant articles allocating money for the purchase of public safety equipment did not pass, whereas an article setting aside funds for the removal of dead trees in municipal cemeteries made it through the voters.
Overall, some tension characterized the budget discussions, with the Budget Advisory Committee recommending some reduced line items compared to the Board of Selectmen.
Following four hours of discussion, residents passed the operating budget with a series of amendments that reduced the monetary allocation for legal fees, reordered some of the fire department’s finances and added to the road agent’s salary. The total operating budget ended up being $3,923,470, falling at around $27,000 less than the proposed budget.
LeBreton proposed multiple amendments to reduce line items.
“I just don’t think we need to add fluff to the budget where it’s not necessary,” LeBreton said.
Despite disagreement at many points throughout the meeting, the prevailing sentiment was one of wanting the town to get along better.
“It bothers me that we have a group of people here that have split up,” said resident Earl Weir. “We’re all residents of the same town. We should work together to make everything work, for everyone.”
In the spirit of community, Chichester residents took time to celebrate former police chief and U.S. veteran Patrick Clarke, who received the “Vote in Honor of a Veteran” recognition from Secretary of State David Scanlan in front of all the attendees.
Residents also recognized Doug and Kate Hall, who lived in town for 50 years and recently moved to Concord.
Doug Hall, who held many positions in town over the years, encouraged others to step up and get involved beyond coming to town meeting.
“Everyone here, including those of you who are here for the first year, needs to think about, how can I support my town and the other 11 months of the year?”
