SB 2 debate begins in Meredith

Advocates and opponents of replacing the traditional town meeting with the official ballot — commonly called SB-2 — traded shots at a public hearing on a petitioned warrant article calling for the change before the Board of Selectmen on Monday night.

Town Manager Carol Granfield set the scene with a staff report which concluded "the SB-2 form of government is not recommended as a positive improvement for the Town of Meredith." She explained that SB-2 was primarily intended to provide voters unable to attend Town Meeting an opportunity to vote on the warrant and to enable voters to cast their ballots in private.

However, Granfield expressed a number of reservations about the process. "Many people voting," she said, "do not understand the articles. (And) Those who don't understand the articles typically vote no." She noted that when voters reject the budget, the default budget taking its place includes contractual agreements with collective bargaining units, which must be honored, sometimes at the expense of positions and services. Granfield suggested that SB-2, by increasing the likelihood of voters rejecting budgets while ensuring that union contracts must be fulfilled, could encourage municipal employees to form collective bargaining units. "SB-2 communities," Granfield suggested, "may better assist towns that do not have a professional manager and department heads on staff."

Richard Juve, who led the effort to place the proposal on the warrant, remarked that "men and women fighting overseas can't vote in our town and we call this a democracy." Likewise, he said that many "mature citizens" could not get to a Town Meeting at 7 p.m. and sit through it until 11 p.m. or later.

Juve was echoed by several speakers, including Phil McGowan, who stressed that typically between 800 and 1,000 cast ballots in the town elections, but less than half turn out the next evening to vote at Town Meeting. Consequently, he said the town and school district meetings are "in the hands of special interest groups," town employees and teachers.

Former selectmen Peter Miller described himself as one SB-2 is said to benefit, a senior citizen with "many infirmities," but declared "I am radically, vehemently opposed to inflicting SB-2 on the Town of Meredith." Town Meeting, he called "our direct link to the America that was conceived and created by the architects of our constitution, the only thing they would surely recognize. There is very little left in America," he continued, "that has such a precious connection."

Miller said that the proposal was "all about curbing spending, a way of axing capital projects" and claimed that had the official ballot been in place, the Community Center and new police station would not have been built. He said that while Town Meeting "unites and bonds the residents of this town," SB-2 has proved divisive. "I would hate to see us get mired in the kind of conflicts you see in Sanbornton, Gilford or Moultonborough."

Fire Chief Chuck Palm, who is running to replace chairman Frank Michel on the Selectboard, suggested that expectations that voters could control the tax rate by adopting SB-2 are misplaced. He recalled that last year the tax rate rose 17 cents, from $10.74 to $10.91, but that the town portion of the rate dropped 9-cents, from $3.79 to $3.70. On the other hand, the school portion climbed 6-cents, the state property tax 13-cents and county tax 7-cents, he said, adding that the largest share of the increase, the state and county taxes, is beyond the control of the town.

"We can control the tax rate with what we have right here," Palm declared.

Selectman Bob Flanders said that "my biggest concern is that when the people go to the polls they have the full story," referring to the "warts and pimples" of the SB-2 process. "I've just heard an awful lot of negatives," he said, recalling that in one town voters endorsed contradictory articles and in another reduced an appropriation for a fire station to $1. Noting that participation in the deliberative meeting is an important part of the SB 2-process, Flanders said that those people wintering in Florida and unable to attend are "disenfranchised," even if they cast absentee ballots. "Is that a more representative form of government? It doesn't seem like that to me," he said.

The proposal to adopt SB-2 will appear on both the town and school district warrant in March, where it will require a super-majority of 60-percent to succeed. Town Moderator Lou Kahn said that he will invite Bob Ambrose, Senior Deputy Secretary of State, who is well versed in the design and operation of SB-2, to explain the official ballot form of town government at Candidates Night, which is scheduled for the evening of Thursday, February 28 at the Community Center.