A report from a freshman Town Meeting Member

[YankeyMCC]

My town (just outside Boston) has a representative Town Meeting system of government. Meaning you have to be elected to Town Meeting (although often you run, as I did, unopposed).

I ran and became a Town Meeting Member. Last night I attended my first Town Meeting.

I gotta say nothing beats a good dose of pure (or very nearly pure) democracy. Yes most of what we did was acceptance of various board and committee reports and the most interesting we've done so far dealt with a couple of zoning issues but it was simply fantastic because it was so refreshing.

The meeting is opened with our local Menotomy Minute Men marching in with the Flag to drum and fife. As they reached the front of the hall the drum and fife played the "Star Spangled Banner" and all the TMM's sang along.

And I was doing this just a few days after coming back from what I called our American Hajj. I took my family from Lexington Green (you know where that mysterious shot was fired) near our home, down to Philadelphia and Fort McHenry and finally to DC.

This was a moving moment IMHO.

Then we were sworn in and things proceeded from there.

It felt extremely good to be part of this after feeling so democratically frustrated on a national level. It was refreshing and that's what made it so fantastic and even moving at times.

Signed,
YankeyMCC
TMM of the great Precinct of 18.

;)

[FourStarDemocrat]

1. Congratulations!

Lots of luck, you sound thrilled and ready for it. cheers! :thumbsup:

[johnnie]

2. That sounds great

You sound like you are going to like this. Keep it up!