Town Meeting: Citizen Lawmakers at Work
Your neighbors are the citizen lawmakers, setting the budget and bylaws that keep the town running.S
What comes to mind when you hear the word "legislature"? Maybe you think of men and women in suits, working in a great wood-paneled hall, writing, debating, and voting on bills which become laws that govern our nation.
You might not have thought about your next-door neighbor, sitting in the high school auditorium, wearing a hoodie and a pair of jeans, a stack of spiral-bound books balanced on one knee. But here in Burlington, as in nearly 300 other towns across the Commonwealth, that's exactly what the lawmaking body looks like. And the work they do is much more tangible and immediate than the work that gets done at the federal level.
Burlington has a Town Meeting form of governmentâspecifically, a Representative Town Meeting. Where most towns in Massachusetts have open town meetings, where any registered voter can join in the debate and vote on the Warrant, Burlington and a handful of other towns (roughly 15% of all towns) elect Town Meeting Members (TMMs) that represent each precinct in the legislature.
Burlington holds Town Meetings three times per year, in May, September, and January, and the 126 TMMs assemble to vote on the articles contained in the Warrant, which is the guiding document for each Town Meeting. Warrant articles are either general, financial, or bylaw-related; the job of Town Meeting can be summarized as governing the town's laws and finances.
May's Town Meeting, which is coming up in just over a week, is the town's annual Town Meeting. At this meeting, the annual budget is approved for the town. This is after months of work by the Ways and Means Committee and all the town's departments to determine a budget that fits within the recommended guidelines and allows for the town to provide services the community needs. Many of the capital expenditures (usually big-ticket, one-time items like vehicle replacement, infrastructure projects, etc.) are also voted on at this meeting.
In May, as in January and September, TMMs will vote on new bylaws and amendments to the existing ones; these are typically brought forth from within the town departments such as Conservation, Economic Development, Planning, and so forth, but can also be initiated by TMMs or by residents with the sponsorship of a TMM.
In the coming days, the Buzz will summarize the Warrant, as we've done since May of 2022, so residents can see the work of their Town Meeting representatives and understand what is being voted on. If you have questions about the process or want to chat with your Town Meeting representatives about anything on the Warrant, figure out your precinct and then reach out to your representatives.
More information can be found on the Town Clerk's website.
