ENFIELD — At the end of this month, residents will decide whether to do away with the town’s traditional floor meeting and handle all Town Meeting business under what’s known as SB 2 voting, which would return the town to a meeting format it did away with two decades ago.
For the most part, currently, Enfield voters elect town officials and determine zoning amendments by all-day Australian balloting on the state’s traditional Town Meeting Day the second Tuesday in March. That is followed by a floor meeting, usually on Saturday, in which residents vote on other warrant articles such as the town budget and other spending measures.
The article to shift to SB 2 format, which would do away with the Saturday floor meeting and shift to a deliberative session followed by ballot voting, is a petitioned article, meaning it originated from residents rather than the Selectboard.
Debra Ford, who served as the business manager for the Mascoma Valley Regional School District for eight years, is one of the residents advocating for SB 2, and she cites changing times as the reason to revive the format.
“Town Meeting, it used to get a lot of participation,” Ford said. “I just feel now there are a lot of people that work on Saturdays or they don’t have child care or they’re away. Maybe they’re retired people and they’re away when Town Meeting happens and they can’t do an absentee ballot for all these budget items.”
The SB 2 article requires 60% support to pass.
The petition was motivated, in part, by two multimillion-dollar bonds — one to renovate Whitney Hall, which includes the town offices and library, and another to build a new public safety facility that will house the police, fire and EMS services — which will be voted on at this year’s floor meeting, set for 9 a.m. April 30 at Huse Park.
With two big-ticket bonds on the table, supporters of the SB 2 structure say it would allow more voters to weigh in on future bond proposals.
Others remain neutral on the meeting formats.
“There’s some good reasons for both of them,” Town Manager Ed Morris said. “It’s nice to bring people together and let them voice their opinions and make a vote. The SB 2 one allows people who couldn’t make it to the meeting to vote absentee.”
The meeting format dates back to 1995, when the New Hampshire Legislature passed RSA 40:13 — better known by its legislative handle, Senate Bill 2 — allowing towns and school districts to move away from the traditional floor meeting structure.
After adopting SB 2 in 1996, Enfield voters defeated a measure in 1997 that would have returned the town to traditional meeting, according to records from town reports provided by Alisa Bonnette, assistant town manager in Enfield.
In 2001, the effort was successful and the measure to return to a floor meeting passed by a vote of 390-251.
The town returned to floor meetings in 2002 and there have been no articles to return to SB 2 until this year.
Few towns in Hampshire have gone back to a traditional floor after adopting all-day ballot voting under SB 2, but among them are two Mascoma Valley Regional School District towns: In 1999, both Orange and Dorchester rolled back the meeting format.
Tim Jennings was one of the residents who led the effort 20 years ago for Enfield to return to the floor. He continues to support the format, in part, because it pushes residents to become more informed about topics before they cast their votes and engage in discussion with residents they disagree with.
“Several times I have been convinced by the floor argument to vote in a way I wouldn’t have. And that’s been useful, that’s been very useful,” Jennings said. “The biggest reason I think folks are promoting SB 2 is they think it increases the level of participation in town government, and I would suggest that’s a facade, it’s not really a case.”
A sampling of voter turnout since the return to the floor meeting suggests that ballot voting on Tuesday draws far more residents than the Saturday meetings.
In 2002, the first year of the return to the floor meeting, 571 votes were cast in a two-way race for town clerk during Tuesday balloting.
According to the minutes for Saturday’s floor meeting, the only paper ballot vote taken had 239 votes.
A decade later in 2012, 847 residents voted in an uncontested race for the town moderator during Tuesday balloting.
At that year’s Saturday floor meeting, 137 people voted by paper ballot on a sewer main extension.
Ford said that if the town switched to SB 2, voters would still have an opportunity to amend warrant articles and express their opinions during a deliberative session, which is held the month before Town Meeting.
“To me that protects the entity. The school district or the town,” she said.
In 2021, nearly 600 people voted by ballot on an article over whether to keep the town manager style of government.
But at last year’s floor meeting, only 80 people voted on an article about purchasing a new fire engine.
“Those are the people that have time to go on a Saturday and spend all day,” Ford said. “It’s not reflective of the population when it’s just 200 people voting.”
Jennings worries doing away with the floor meeting would cause a greater disconnect between elected officials, town business and voters.
He is concerned that people will not be able to get the information they need in order to vote and will not have discussions that can help them make informed decisions.
“Only a handful of people are aware who the Selectmen are, what their faces look like, what their personalities are like,” he said, adding that Town Meeting gives residents a greater chance to interact with town officials. “If you really want to participate, you’ve got to get interested in the subject and study up a little ahead of time. You’ve got to sit and listen to people sometimes for several hours. You’re just exercising an extraordinary amount of responsibility. A lot of people don’t want to do that.”
Like Ford, Jennings mentioned this year’s two big-ticket renovation proposals as rationale for his position.
At a floor meeting, he said, voters have more of an opportunity to understand what they are voting for.
“All in all, people in Enfield are really smart,” Jennings said. “I think when they come to Town Meeting, they participate in good faith and no one leaves in a big argument, so I’ve always been impressed with our little town.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
