Brookline Town Meeting, Tuesday Night

As some of you may know, since May 2001 I have been an elected Town Meeting Member (TMM) in Brookline from my precinct. The representative Town Meeting seems to be a uniquely New England concept; the idea is to keep major bylaw and policy decisions as close to the people as possible, while acknowledging the fact that 60,000 or so town residents cannot comfortably fit into the high school auditorium. So each of Brookline's 16 precincts elects 15 TMMs, five per year for a three-year term. That leads to a Town Meeting of 240 members, plus the At Large members.

Town Meeting is usually held twice a year, the Annual Meeting in the Spring when we vote on many issues including the budget for the following fiscal year, and the Special Meeting in the Fall when we vote on other things. We just met on Tuesday and Wednesday night, and if you want to know what I found interesting on this session's warrant the first night, following the bouncing LJ cut tag.

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For Wednesday night's session, including the outcome of the resolution on spanking, see the next rock...as soon as I have time to post it.

Brookline Town Meeting, Wednesday Night

Having gotten through about half the warrant on Tuesday night, most of us expected to finish up the warrant on Wednesday night. Sure enough, we did. Including the infamous anti-spanking resolution. If that's what interests you, just follow the cut tag and scroll to the bottom...

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And there you go, more than you ever needed to know about Brookline Town Meeting. Tune in again next Spring when we decide upon the budget for Fiscal Year 2006.