With coffee brewing at the back of the room and residents settling into folding metal chairs, Town Moderator Dickson Corbett stepped to the front of the stage at 9:03 a.m. Tuesday.
COVID-19, be damned. Masks, full speed ahead.
Chelsea — unlike the vast majority of Vermont towns in the Upper Valley — conducted its annual Town Meeting the old-fashioned way: in person on the first Tuesday of March with most voting done from the floor.
“I’m really pleased we’re back,” Corbett, who was taking the morning off from his job as Orange County state’s attorney, told me before the meeting started. “People like seeing their neighbors and hearing what they have to say.”
Even if they don’t always agree.
On my way into Town Hall, I mentioned to Assistant Town Clerk and Lister Phyllis Hayward that Chelsea was one of only two Upper Valley towns — Barnard being the other — to gather Tuesday in person.
“Which I’m not in favor of,” said Hayward, sitting behind a plastic barrier and like nearly everyone else in the room, a mask covering her mouth and nose.
Did she have coronavirus concerns? I asked.
Not really, Hayward said.
Count Hayward among Vermonters who question whether democracy is served by restricting voting on town budgets and other issues to those residents who show up at a designated time on a specific day in March.
Of the 937 residents on Chelsea’s checklist, only 40 voters (4.3%) came Tuesday.
The ongoing coronavirus threat probably kept a few residents away. But even before the pandemic, the annual meeting was lucky to attract a crowd of 100 or so, I’m told. It’s more likely that Chelsea residents are no different than people in most towns.
They can’t afford to take a day off from work or they don’t see local government playing a large enough role in their daily lives to warrant their time.
To increase voter participation, Chelsea should change its format to allow residents to cast ballots throughout the day, Hayward said. “It’s much more equitable,” she told me.
In the throes of the pandemic last March, roughly 80% of Vermont towns canceled their traditional Town Meeting. Many opted for all-day voting by Australian ballot or drop-off and mail-in voting.
This year, some 75% of Vermont municipalities are still avoiding in-person gatherings, according to a VTDigger survey.
Last year “we got a lot of flak for having just Australian balloting,” Chelsea Selectboard member Levar Cole told me.
This year, the board decided to stage a traditional floor meeting with a twist. Voters who showed up for the 9 a.m. meeting would decide the town budget, allocations for nonprofit service agencies and consider establishing a transfer station equipment reserve fund with an initial deposit of $2,500.
Residents, however, could drop by Town Hall from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. to cast ballots in secret for town officers and whether Chelsea should withdraw from the First Branch Unified School District.
“It’s a compromise,” Cole said.
State Sen. Mark MacDonald, who in the years before the pandemic spent Town Meeting Day zigzagging across Orange County to give voters a legislative update, told Chelsea residents he was glad to see them back at Town Hall.
“Zoom is not a good way of doing business,” MacDonald said. “It’s a lack of personal interaction.”
Frank Keene, who has served on the town’s cemetery commission for 33 years, used the meeting to point out that the new Town Report showed the Selectboard had allotted $22,500 for upkeep of the town’s graveyards.
“We asked for $20,000, so I don’t know if it’s a misprint or I should just say thank you to the Selectboard,” Keene remarked.
It wasn’t a mistake, Cole assured him. With the cost of labor, equipment and gas increasing, “we went up a little bit more,” Cole said.
Along with a dose of levity, Town Meeting Day in Chelsea showed how the people who show up hold the power of the purse.
Hoping to lighten the Selectboard’s workload, resident Phillip Mulligan brought up increasing the hours of the town’s administrative assistant or creating an additional part-time position.
In a voice vote that drew not a single nay, residents added $30,000 to the town budget, bringing the amount to be raised through taxes to $952,603.
As is often the case at a traditional Town Meeting, voters had more than just money on their minds. Like many communities, Chelsea is struggling to fill elected positions.
On Tuesday, Cole and Mark Whitney sat alone at the Selectboard table. Chelsea entered voting day with three empty seats on its governing board and only one declared candidate.
Whitney, who was elected last year, gave a not-so-subtle pitch for write-in candidates. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s rewarding as well,” he told residents.
The $1,500-a-year position “doesn’t require a master’s degree or a doctorate,” he added. “All it requires is that you’re willing to listen and be respectful of other residents.”
Shortly after Whitney finished, resident Kate MacLean stood up. She served on the Selectboard for a couple years before resigning in November. The “negative emails and phone calls, sometimes harassing, are really trying,” she said.
Mike Kuban, a former member of the Selectboard, said more residents must “step up and take an active role in the community.”
Kuban wondered if moving Town Meeting to a Saturday could lead to greater participation. Other towns have gone that route without much success, a few residents responded.
“Unless we start handing out free beer in the back afterwards,” Whitney told the audience, “I don’t know how you encourage more people to come.”
A few minutes later, the meeting adjourned at 10:48 a.m. Probably too early in the day for a cold beverage, anyway.
Jim Kenyon can be reached at jkenyon@vnews.com.