I’m Just A (Belmont) Bill! A Simple Change To Make Town Meeting Work Better.

Remember that cartoon bill in the Schoolhouse Rock! video? Sitting up on Capitol Hill, singing about the long, long journey to reach Congress? Belmont doesn’t have Congress. But it does have its own legislative body: Town Meeting. Town Meeting is responsible for passing the town budget, acting on CPA grants, adopting zoning and general bylaws, authorizing debt, and much more.

Lately it’s been a long, long journey to get some articles heard at Annual Town Meeting. Why is that? A big reason is our town leadership’s narrowing of the submission window. This affects Town Meeting members and residents who want to submit articles for consideration. I am proposing an amendment to change that.

The Town Meeting process starts with the warrant. By state law, Town Meetings “shall be called in pursuance of a warrant,” which is issued by the Select Board and sets out the time, place, and “the subjects to be acted upon” at the meeting, known as articles. Everything to be addressed by Town Meeting must first be included on the warrant.

A tradition of timely discussions

In Belmont, the General Bylaws allow the Select Board to set dates when the Town Meeting warrant opens and closes without any limitations. After the warrant “closes,” the Select Board may choose to reopen and add other articles. However, they may decline to add articles as untimely. This decision keeps committee/board requests and citizen petitions from reaching Town Meeting. (By state law, any ten registered voters can submit an article for Annual Town Meeting – basically the opportunity for citizens, including town meeting members, to submit their own bills.)

From at least 2015 through 2024, the Select Board closed the warrant in March or late February for Annual Town Meeting, which occurs at the end of April or beginning of May. This schedule provided six weeks or more from the close of the warrant to the Annual Town Meeting. However, for the 2025 and 2026 Annual Town Meetings, the Select Board drastically changed the schedule. They closed the warrant in early January. This is about four months before the Annual Town Meeting begins.

Hindering Town Meeting’s responsiveness

Cutting off submission of warrant articles in early January for a late April or early May Annual Town Meeting causes problems:

• Less opportunity for timely discussions – The early January closing date means that articles must be prepared four months in advance of the Town Meeting. Often, issues just aren’t fully developed in December or early January. Practically, that means the process of preparing for Town Meeting and the activity going on throughout the early part of the year are cut out of consideration, unless the Select Board permits it.
• Hard work during the holidays? The early January deadline means that articles must be prepared over the holiday period. That’s not just an inconvenience; it also means that town staff may not be available for questions and input. Moreover, the deadline doesn’t just apply to individuals attempting to gather petition signatures at holiday parties, it can also apply to town committees attempting to schedule and hold public meetings.
• Uncertainty. Because the Select Board controls whether articles submitted after the Board’s deadline are, or are not, included in the Town Meeting warrant, there is uncertainty as to what will make the cut and why.
• Reduced responsiveness of Town Meeting. Finally, Town Meeting is an independent legislative body of the Town and should be able to consider those issues that its members, the public, and all town boards, committees, and officials believe are important. Town Meeting appropriately spends a lot of time considering Select Board priorities, but Town Meeting has other business as well, and there should be reasonable opportunities to address those issues.

Clarifying rules around Warrant articles and citizen petitions

The good news is that this problem can be fixed.

I am asking Town Meeting to adopt a General Bylaw amendment at this year’s Annual Town Meeting (in May). The purpose is to establish that the Annual Town Meeting warrant will open the first Monday in January. It will remain open through the second Monday in March. You can review my proposed amendment here.

This provides an early open date to encourage article submissions earlier in the process, while returning our Town to a later closing date on proposed articles. The amendment provides clarity by specifying that the dates cover citizens petitions and town board/official submissions. It maintains flexibility by permitting the Select Board to add articles after the closing date when they could not reasonably have been presented earlier.

In addition to restoring Belmont’s previous, democratic practice of a later closing date, the amendment is consistent with bylaws in many other towns. Indeed, the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s Select Board Handbook states: “How long the Town Meeting warrant must be open, and how long before Town Meeting it must be opened, are usually addressed in a town’s bylaws.” There is considerable variation in the dates selected by different towns, but many towns have established warrant closing dates around 30 to 60 days before the Annual Town Meeting, similar to this amendment.

I hope you’ll support this initiative at Annual Town Meeting or by contacting your precinct’s Town Meeting members or other town officials.

If you’d like to learn more, I have put a FAQ (frequently asked questions) document together, which you can view here.