Petitioners make case for moving Gilford meeting date

GILFORD — Described alternately as a way around voter suppression or simply a “silly waste of time,” residents weighed in on a petitioned warrant article that would move Gilford’s town meeting date from March to May.

The public hearing at the start of last Wednesday’s selectmen’s meeting gave petitioners a chance to explain why they supported a change the selectmen had gone on record as opposing.

Lead petitioner Norm Silber cited low voter turnout at the March Town Meeting, attributing it to two reasons: bad weather and residents who are out of town at that time.

“I’ve never been a big fan of voter suppression,” Silber said. “There are people who are politically opposed to voter suppression, so they really should support efforts to make it easier to come and vote.”

Silber said senior citizens, especially, are concerned about going out in bad weather, so delaying the vote to May would give them a chance to participate. Similarly, by May, he said, the “snowbirds” who winter in the south to avoid the bad weather will have returned and will be able to vote.

While he acknowledged that residents can obtain absentee ballots if they cannot make it to the polls, Silber said only about 100 such ballots are cast each year.

Michael Dowe called the petition a silly waste of time, saying, “We certainly, in Gilford, can handle cold weather.” He said if low turnout was a concern, the town could move its meeting to a Saturday.

Johanna Davis said she looked back through the records and found no correlation between the weather and voter turnout. “It’s always been about 17 percent, whether it’s 9-degree or 50-degree weather,” she said.

Selectmen cited the difficulty the change would create with the town’s calendar-year budget, noting that the town would be operating from January to May without an approved budget; but Skip Murphy, a three-term member of the Gilford Budget Committee, dismissed that concern. He noted that many of those signing the petition also were budget committee members, and they did not see a problem.

“Of all the people in Gilford, those are the ones that would actually understand the ramifications from a budgetary perspective,” Murphy said.

The town could handle it by setting a larger budget to account for that period, he said, or if something came up that required action before town meeting, selectmen could seek an emergency appropriation.

“You have multiple options to make this work,” Murphy said. “The school district has the same opportunity as well.”

The other option — the one selectmen said they would want in place before moving the town meeting date — would be to change the town’s fiscal year. Murphy suggested they could do that after approving the date change.

Murphy said that most of the objections to the change come from town and school district employees.

“I never thought you would say, ‘Don’t do that because it would make my life more difficult,” he said. “It should be the townsfolk who should have that say.”

Philip Kuc said keeping the town meeting date in March favors those who benefit from town spending. “The last two years, we saw that the date was not postponed, and the people directly affected will come to vote, but the majority will not risk driving here,” he said.

Diane Hanley offered an alternative solution: designating and announcing a “snow date” so the meeting can be rescheduled in the event of a storm.

Murphy pointed out that state law does not allow a town to postpone a town meeting.

“There was a great controversy the last couple of years about who makes that decision,” he said. “The town cannot move that vote.”

Contacted after the meeting, Town Administrator Scott Dunn elaborated on the difficulties involved in changing the town's fiscal year to avoid operating for four and a half months without an approved budget, as would be the case with a May town meeting.

He said the town has considered changing its fiscal year on at least two previous occasions, and decided against it. To make the conversion, he said, the town would have to develop an 18-month budget, which taxpayers would pay in two billings.

"The cost to make that transition would be painful for taxpayers," Dunn said.

As for Murphy's suggestion that selectmen could seek permission from the court for an emergency appropriation if necessary, Dunn said it would involve petitioning for a special town meeting, "and the judge has to determine that an emergency exists."