Time To Look At A Better Alternative To Town Meeting

To the editor: The Annual Town Meeting Warrant arrived this week. 182 pages of proposed Articles and recommendations. 104 Articles, plus Zoning and Planning Board reports. Countless hours of committee and staff time in preparation.

When the ATM opens at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 3, we will spend an hour or more just reading over the list of Articles and deciding which ones to discuss. Perhaps by 9:30 a.m. we will get down to business with 800-900 of the Town's 10,000 registered voters in attendance.

Hopefully, we will get through the majority of our business on Saturday, but if history is a past indicator, we will probably be back on Monday night to finish the job – with a greatly reduced attendance.

With an annual budget in the $200 million range, it's time to look at a better alternative – Town Council.

Why should we support a Town Council form of government for the Town of Nantucket? If you have a citizen's article that you want discussed at the Annual Town Meeting, it must be submitted in November – a full six months before Town Meeting in May. A Town Council meets every two weeks, and can address questions on an immediate basis.

If you are a "summer resident" who helps pay 80 percent of the taxes to support our local government, you can't even get in the door at Annual Town Meeting because you are not a resident voter (unless you choose to sit in the Visitors' Gallery). By comparison, anyone can address the Town Council at its bi-weekly meetings, and your voice can be heard.

If you are a resident, but not a registered voter, who helps support our workforce, our schools, our hospital, our community organizations, a plumber, carpenter, landscaper, teacher, nurse practitioner, or one of many others in the service industry, you can't go to Town Meeting and vote on issues that are important to you. But you can go to a Town Council meeting and make your concerns known.

If you are hardworking and working extra hours to make ends meet on Nantucket, you may not have the time, or the extra funds to pay a babysitter for the day in order to attend Annual Town Meeting in the hope that your concerns might be addressed. But at Town Council you can address the Council as the first order of business, and be home in time for dinner with your family.

The proposed Town Council form of government will retain all of the appointed and elected committees that inform and support our local government, so your voice will continue to be heard. And by meeting on a bi-weekly basis the Council will be able to take action on important questions on a more timely basis.

Voters will have the opportunity to voice their opinion about a Town Council form of government for Nantucket in non-binding surveys at both Annual Town Meeting and at the annual Town election in May.

Consider the options, ask your questions, and then vote to express your opinion about how Town government can best serve the needs of Nantucket in the future.

Curtis Barnes