Dear Editor:

At the opening of the Boothbay Harbor town meeting, the town manager reminded us this is “the purest form of democracy,” as such it requires participation, education and effort. In a time when our elected representatives are often hamstrung by agenda and not doing what is best perhaps, town meetings are where we as a people actually have a say. 

In order to have a say there has to be discussion and suspending the reading of warrant articles does not lend itself to civil discourse. I wonder how many in the room would have even known what they were voting on had questions not been asked by myself and others. The figurative stopwatch the moderator holds tends to stifle discussion. It would have been fun as a kid watching town meetings in the Opera House to see what the likes of Stillman Brewer would have had to say in similar circumstances. 

This is a dangerous trend especially when coupled with the lack of participation. Soon we will have calls for a change to a referendum style town meeting. It certainly can be argued that you get more people voting but are those informed votes? I think not. Of course, proponents point to the public meetings held beforehand but are people any more likely to go to those as to town meeting. 

We should not be surprised to awake one day to find onerous restrictions on our private property, out of control spending and even “deferred maintenance” on our public buildings … Oh, wait. 

I urge everyone to begin to attend meetings of the school and trustee boards and the selectboard. We to need ask the questions of our elected servants and hold them to the answers they provide. We can no longer blindly accept the premise that we are somehow “disrespecting the experts” as a sitting school board member told us. Get up, get out, speak up and speak out, from an informed position otherwise as the adage goes “We get the government we deserve.”

Linc Sample

Boothbay Harbor