Town Meeting Abandonments
This document is reprinted with permission from "The Manager Plan in Maine" published by the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy. Copies of the complete book may be obtained by calling the Center at (207) 581-1646.
In 1965 Old Orchard Beach became the first Maine town to abandon the town meeting in favor of a council-manager form of government. Previously, Presque Isle, Caribou and other communities had similarly abandoned the town meeting by becoming a city. However, Old Orchard Beach retained its traditional status as a town. Since Old Orchard Beach's action, 17 other towns have abandoned the town meeting form of government and adopted the council-manager form. Table 3 shows the town, the year of town meeting abandonment, the 1960 and 1970 populations of the town and the percent increase in the town's population over the 1960-70 period.
During the period 1965 to 1975, there was a growing trend of town meeting abandonments in favor of the council-manager form of government. The 1970 populations of these towns range from 3,725 in Dexter to 16,195 in Brunswick, with eleven of the 18 towns exceeding 5,000 in population.
The growth in population in these communities from 1960 to 1970 is of particular interest. Nine of the 18 municipalities had populations which expanded by 15 percent or more -- Cumberland and Windham exhibiting a 48.1 percent and 46.6 percent increase, respectively. The average population size of all 18 municipalities increased more than 14 percent over the 10-year period. This average percent increase compares to a 2.4 percent increase for the state as a whole over the 1960 to 1970 period.
These data stimulate questions as to the applicability and workability of the town meeting in municipalities over 3,000 in population and in those which are experiencing significant population growth. While a variety of political, social and cultural factors assuredly came to play in these town meeting abandonments, the inability of the town meeting to provide representative and effective policy direction was a crucial factor. The following reasons have been cited as town meeting problems:
1) citizen apathy and low town meeting attendance,
2) the tendency for a few citizens, who may have a personal interest in a particular policy matter, to decide its outcome for the town,
3) the need for frequent special town meetings,
4) growing complexity of the matters considered at town meetings, and
5) the mechanical and deliberative problems when a large number of voters did attend the town meeting.
These and other considerations have contributed to the demise of the town meeting and its eventual abandonment in these communities. The town meeting still remains popular in its pure or modified form, especially in the smaller communities, and is a part of New England's political tradition.
The Former town manager of Falmouth, Osmond Bonsey, presented some insight into the specific reasons for the abandonment of the town meeting in that community.
...the town (Falmouth) budget had doubled in six years. At the same time, the articles in the town meeting warrant had been reduced from seventy-eight to fifty-three, resulting in larger and more complex budgets for each article. It became increasingly more difficult for citizens to make an honest evaluation of each request at a one-day meeting.... The meetings became routine and, for the average citizen, increasingly dull. Attendance dropped in half from six hundred to three hundred (Bonsey, 1967, p. 11).
Recent abandonments of the town meeting in favor of the council-manager form of government all occurred during the ten year period from 1965 to 1975. Although there have been similar population increases in other municipalities, it is interesting to note that there have been no town meeting abandonments since 1975. It is likely that the amended town manager law and the adoption of home rule have provided municipalities alternatives to changing their form of governments.