Moultonborough holding drive-in Town Meeting on Saturday

MOULTONBOROUGH — Combine a drive-in movie with traditional town meeting, and that’s what voters in this town will be experiencing on Saturday.

Paul Punturieri, the town moderator, said that he had to postpone Town Meeting twice this winter due to concerns about coronavirus, and that he felt that a meeting in some form was necessary in order to conduct the business of the town.

“The selectmen and the school district are getting anxious about not having money allocated – they wanted to get the meeting in sooner rather than later,” Punturieri said, explaining that he was inspired by a solution modeled by the town of Jaffrey, which held a drive-in style town meeting on June 6.

“We are basically taking their model of how to conduct a town meeting in the pandemic, it went really smoothly,” Punturieri said. “We’re going to give it a shot.”

Moultonborough’s plan is to head to the neighboring town and gather at the Sandwich Fairgrounds on Saturday morning, June 20. Voters are asked to enter the fairgrounds near the Sandwich Fire Station at 8 a.m., and stay in their vehicles. They will be routed past a station with the supervisors of the checklist, then will drive to a field where they will be directed to park – with a safe distance between each vehicle – for both the school district and town meetings.

Punturieri said there are a little more than 4,000 voters on the checklist, and that last year’s Town Meeting had nearly 700 voters in attendance.

“I don’t expect that many this time, but we’re hoping to get a good turnout,” he said. The field could hold about 200 appropriately spaced vehicles, he said, which would likely translate to about 300 voters. There are some alternative parking areas if the main field’s capacity is exceeded, Punturieri said, but, “If we could not manage it, we’d have to adjourn.”

Voters who cannot, or choose not, to drive themselves to the meeting should ask the town for transportation. Punturieri said they’ll be provided with a chair to sit in during the meeting. “We’ll make accommodations for them,” he said.

As with traditional meetings, voters will be given brightly-colored cards for them to raise to indicate their support or disapproval of warrant articles. They will also be invited to share their thoughts on the matter at hand, either by speaking at one of three microphones, or, if they’re unable to walk, by honking their horn so that a microphone can be brought to them.

There will be reason for voters to speak up, too. Two articles on the town warrant ask the voters to allocate money for the construction of a community center, an issue which has perennially divided townspeople. Another article asks for money to pay for the demolition of a historic building. The meeting has also generated some passionate letters to the editor.

If voters are out of their vehicles, such as walking to the microphone or on their way to one of the portable toilets, they are asked to observe an appropriate distance from others and to wear a face covering. The proceedings will be broadcast over radio waves, so that voters can listen in their cars.

Voters are also asked to be prepared to spend much of the day in their parked car, as the meeting could take several hours. Two of the articles are to be decided by secret ballot, and by rule the ballot box for each of those articles will stay open for one hour. So voters should bring snacks and drinks, especially since the forecast calls for a warm day with a chance of thunderstorms.

Heat is one thing, Punturieri said, “If it rains hard, we’ll have another issue to deal with.”

“We’re hoping people will come out, follow the directions where to park, it will make the day go a lot smoother,” Punturieri said. He added that this is a situation he never thought he’d have to navigate when he first ran for moderator in 2017.

“I postponed the meeting three times because of the pandemic, the only reason I thought we’d cancel a meeting in March was because of snow. I never thought this would happen,” he said. “I’m hoping that the weather gods cooperate.”