In 25 years of covering the Upper Valley, one of the most extraordinary public gatherings I’ve been to was the 2012 Bethel Town Meeting.

Unhappy with how town officials handled the immediate aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene the previous year, voters thronged the Town Hall. The standing-room-only crowd voted out a sitting Selectboard member, replacing him with Bill Hall, Hartford’s former finance director.

The most surprising aspect of the meeting was its conclusion: Former longtime Moderator Carroll Ketchum moved to adjourn the meeting, but voters rejected it, voting by ballot, 57-39, to keep the Selectboard in its seats on the Town Hall stage until they agreed to hold a public meeting to talk about the Irene response. The board agreed, and the meeting was adjourned.

Throughout the meeting, Bethel voters were stern but gracious, thanking the former selectman for his 12 years of service while making clear that it was time for a change. The Town Hall, then newly renovated, crackled with a kind of interpersonal electricity.

Last Tuesday, Bethel voters decided to stop electing their public officials at the floor meeting and will use instead Australian ballot voting.

This is not a huge change. Bethel, as part of the White River Unified District, already elects School Board members by Australian ballot. But it’s worth noting that a scene like the one that took place on March 6, 2012, won’t happen again.

Eric Benson, Bethel’s moderator for the past 15 years or so, said he hopes the town doesn’t stray further from its Town Meeting tradition.

“The fear, of course, from a lot of folks, is that this is the start of eliminating Town Meeting and having just an informational meeting,” he said in an interview.

The shift to Australian ballot, in which the polls are open for up to 12 hours on Town Meeting Day, comes from the coronavirus pandemic, Benson said. Voter participation increased, but Benson doesn’t see it as a fair comparison. Australian ballot was the only way to vote in 2021 and 2022, and ballots were mailed out to all voters. And people were starved to participate, he added.

The problem Bethel’s action last Tuesday was meant to remedy was present at the meeting 11 years ago, too. The presence of 214 of Bethel’s then checklist of 1,346 voters in 2012 was considered a strong turnout for Town Meeting. That’s a little under 16% of registered voters. Last Tuesday, 172 people attended.

Bethel was one of several Upper Valley towns to consider adopting Australian balloting for some or all of town and school business. Bradford, Vt., voters chose to elect officers by Australian ballot, but voted to keep holding a floor meeting for budgets and public questions.

Two other towns opted for the extremes. Bridgewater rejected Australian balloting entirely, and Strafford, where residents have been meeting in the Town House since 1800 or so, decided to conduct all of its business by Australian ballot.

These votes were either/or questions that had no right answer. Voters who favor the in-person Town Meeting prize its powers of deliberation and careful decision-making. Those who favor daylong balloting say it’s more accessible. Both formats serve democratic functions in their own way.

In Strafford, I was struck by some of the buzzy words people used to describe the traditional meeting: “elitist”; “unfair”; and a couple of people said they felt some residents were scared to come to Town Meeting, for fear of losing a job for speaking up.

Gigi Graner called the issue, “one of the most difficult decisions that we’ve had.”

Selectboard member Jeff Solsaa, who was reelected from the floor, said he’d come to the meeting with his feet “firmly placed” in the pro-Town Meeting camp, but “today, with this discussion, I’ve changed my mind.” The irony was that “I’ve eliminated that for myself, to have this discussion,” he said, “and yet it was this discussion” that had led him to change his mind.

Mark Kutolowski, who’s lived in the Upper Valley since 1995, but in Strafford since 2017, said that he’s a busy person, but wanted to keep the meeting as it was because “I’m too ignorant to make an informed decision without coming to Town Meeting.” When he doesn’t have an informed opinion, he doesn’t vote, he said.

Supporters of Australian balloting said they get information from so many places now that the meeting discussion is less critical. Town Listservs and social media pages transmit information more widely and easily.

But in the choice between two public goods, something must be lost. What is it, exactly, in the shift to Australian balloting?

“What we’re going to lose is that continuity among the old crowd who’s been ruling the roost for a long time,” said Mary Linehan, a Strafford Selectboard member until last Tuesday who supported moving to Australian ballot. There will still be an informational meeting before the vote, she noted.

There’s something else, though, and it’s hard to define. People who spoke in favor of keeping Town Meeting expressed a belief in its ability to bind a community together. It’s part of what made Vermont what it is, and what drew people to the state. Strafford, Linehan pointed out, had 500 people in it when her family moved there in the 1960s. Now it has 1,100. “It’s not inclusive enough anymore,” Linehan said.

Maybe not. The idea that Strafford won’t hold consequential meetings in the Town House any longer seems like a watershed moment to me, one worthy of extra consideration.

Benson said he sees some benefits to electing officers by Australian ballot. Candidates will have to file petitions early in the process and that will leave more time for the public to vet them, he said.

But the meeting also will miss the opportunity to share publicly their common humanity with their public officials.

“That part of it that’s being lost are those moments when people get to say some heartfelt things about their time on the board,” Benson said. Participation in Town Meeting is such a unique experience that if you don’t have it, it’s hard to know what you’re missing.

Bethel is one of a few Vermont towns with a Town Meeting Committee. After a period of inactivity, the committee met last Thursday.

“It’s the building of community,” Benson said of what Town Meeting fosters. “We’re going to be working on that this year.”

After the 2012 Bethel Town Meeting, a reporter from a National Public Radio show asked me what I thought. What came to mind was that there was nowhere else in the world where a group of citizens could face their elected officials and, in a spirit of goodwill, tell them they can’t leave until they agree to further discussion.

Last week, in a few towns, Vermonters chipped away at that ability at a time when it seems more necessary than ever.

Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.

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