Flashes of Panic

I voted in the town election this morning. I admit I might not have known there was an election going on, had this one not featured a fairly tense question surrounding the town government. Like the small town where I grew up, Amherst is still run by a board of selectmen and a Town Meeting; unlike that town, Amherst’s town meeting is representative (each ward elects twenty-odd representatives to town meeting, rather than all residents going,) and the meeting is spread over several days, where ours was, I think, two: one for the school budget, and another for everything else.

Part of the difference is Amherst’s tendency, as a town, to try to legislate national policy at a town level. Town Meeting apparently spends an inordinate amount of time debating issues like the USA-PATRIOT act, which simply doesn’t happen in coastal Maine. (I heard a story once about the moderator directing an unnecessarily verbose resident to “sit down and shut up.” The moderator, my father, did not contest the story.)

So, for the second time in two or three years, there’s a proposal on the ballot to amend the town charter. The idea is to abolish Town Meeting and the Select Board in favor of an elected City Council and Mayor, respectively. The first time this was up, I was living in Northampton. It was defeated by something like fourteen votes, so they’re trying again.

As is usual at election times, there were sign-holders at the stop-light intersections in town, but in the past they’ve always staked out opposing corners. This time, signs both for and against the new charter were on each corner, the holders sometimes engaged in heated discussion and sometimes friendly conversation. It’s an issue that’s close enough to the political foundation that the town, normally less than 10% conservative, is not divided along the normal lines.

I’m just happy none of them accosted me as I walked to the polls on my morning errand-run.

Now Playing: Angels Walk from Eventually by Paul Westerberg