Town meeting was most effective in a time when almost all of the towns residents also worked in the town and the economy was based on agriculture. Gettting together with your neighbors in the middle of the winter to discuss town business made a lot of sense. However today when a large proportion of the town residents work outside of the town, often as far as 30 or more miles from town, and the econoomy is no longer agricultural it is no longer an effective or democratic way to make decisions that impact all of the towns voters.
Holding votes on budgets and other crucial issues in the middle of the day disinfrancises those individuals who are unable to spend the day at town meeting. When suggestions are made to take those votes using an austrailian ballot where the polls would be open all day giving everyone who wanted to; an opportunity to vote the typical answer is "If it's important to you then you will attend the meeting." This is a pretty disengenuous response. Some folks do not have the luxury of taking the day off (forfeiting a days pay) in order to be able to exercise their right to vote. Others are employed in positions where it would be irresponsible for everyone on the job to take the day off to vote.
Another response is that the information sharing that is important in casting an intelligent vote would be lost if people were allowed to vote without going to town meeting. I believe that if the issues to be voted on were important the proponents and opponents of the question would make sure that every registered voter in the town would be contacted by mail, phone, newspaper or informational meetings to make sure the information was out there. Voters would probably be better informed than they are currently. If austrailian ballot is effective for electing national and state leaders why is it not appropriate for deciding any issue that affects all voters/tax payers in the town. Denying an austrailian ballot is undemocratic in that it restricts the vote to only the elite minority who are able to afford to take the day off.

Although historicly the Town Meetings might have been an asset for the democratic process, the fact is, that when you in a Town of Hartford's size get 200 of 6000 eligable voters involved the process has become obsolete and must be changed to allow a majority of the population to participate and vote.

Leif Smedman (Posted by Tim Johnson, Online Producer)

At last year's Montgomery town meeting the voters, as in many Vermont towns, voted to impeach Bush and Cheney.As no action on this front was ever initiated by our elected representative, Peter Welch, a group of voters will be proposing that we censure him for his inaction.

Jim Murphy, Montgomery (Posted by Tim Johnson, VPR Online Producer)