Westford’s Access Town Meeting Committee:

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In September, 2021, the Select Board established a 15 member committee –  Access to Town Meeting (ATM) – whose goal was to increase attendance at Town Meeting.  The committee formed three working groups:

• Westford Community Input – to survey Westford residents

• Other Town Data Collection – to research town meeting participation and challenges in other towns.

• Remote Participation – to assess option for allowing remote participation in town meeting.

In March, 2023 the committee presented final recommendations to the Select Board.

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The working group on remote participation considered three approaches:

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Salem, NH method:  

• Residents attend (in person or remotely) two information sessions explaining the town meeting articles.

• Paper ballots would be generated and mailed to all registered voters, who would return their votes by a fixed deadline.

Two-meeting method:

• Residents would attend town meeting as today, where motions would be made and amended, but no final votes would be taken.

• A second meeting would be held on a subsequent date, whose sole purpose would be to collect votes.

• In this way residents could choose to attend the initial meeting or not, but would still be able to vote at the second meeting.

Town of Wayland method

• Move to electronic remote voting.

 

The remote participation working group recommended:

• “that we simply monitor the progress of the Town of Wayland as they make their way through the Massachusetts Legislature hoping for approval of their proposal for remote electronic home participation.”

• “asking the Select Board to send a letter to the State Representatives and the Massachusetts Governor suggesting that this is a statewide problem in most towns and requesting that the State work to solve the minimal town meeting attendance problem.”

 

The Select Board did, in fact, send such a letter on July 11, 2023, but has had no response.
 

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