Our elected officials stand guard over the gradual decay and dysfunction of the infrastructure upon which our democracy once depended. We exist in a Democracy that is no longer a democracy. It has sold its soul to the highest bidder. Politicians blatantly ignore the will of the few people that elected them. Fists full of dollars, millions of them, cause the governance of the country to grind to a halt. We bemoan the inability of our government to do what is best for the people it represents.
Yet, democracy is alive and well in Vermont. Annually on Town Meeting day, Vermonters gather town by town to decide all matters within the province of their township. Repairing roads and bridges, school budgets, the salary of town employees, funds to expand the library or fee’s for dog licenses. On March 4th, 2014, such matters are discussed by some hundreds of people who represent the 3,754 people of town of Charlotte, Vermont. A town where 79% of registered voters voted in the last election. A town where every citizen receives a book of no less than 169 pages of vital information to prepare them to participate in the Town Meeting.
The Annual Town Report contains everything from the expenses of the volunteer fire department to a list of weddings, deaths, and births and the activities of the cemetery commission.
Together in the school gymnasium we question whether the town clerk deserves a bigger raise, if the budget for repairing a bridge is adequate, if there is a mathematical error in the school budget, and whether an arbitrator should be hired to negotiate a dispute between two town officials. Year-to-year, the most difficult issue is the school budget. Is the required increase in local property taxes to fund the ever-higher cost of education, for in our case fewer and fewer students, an investment we are willing to make? It was.
This is a wonderful and reassuring example of participatory democracy. That in a country that has little interest in the will of the people, at the most local of all governance, the people’s will prevails.