Two Challengers Vie for Town Moderator

There aren’t many years when a town moderator race reveals more differences of opinion than a selectman’s race, but that’s how it is in Norfolk this year.

 

The town moderator runs Town Meeting and appoints mem­bers to the town’s Advisory Board and Bylaw Committee. There’s nothing else to the job, but challengers Jonathan Smith and CiCi Van Tine have found plenty to disagree about. Smith is emphasizing his experience in town government. He has been a selectman, a School Committee member, and a mem­ber of the Advisory Board, among other things, and he is a long­time participant at Norfolk Town Meeting. Van Tine is a relative newcomer to Norfolk, but she has jumped into town government. She has served on the town’s Ad­visory Board since last year.

While Smith notes that he knows all the players in town gov­ernment and has institutional memory of the way things work in Norfolk, Van Tine points out that neither candidate has ever been a town moderator, and she says she has succeeded in making transitions during her career and would be a good moderator.

Town moderator has mysterious and surprisingly broad pow­ers. State law makes the moderator something close to the dicta­tor of Town Meeting, with authority to prolong or end debate on the floor and to determine who can or can’t attend Town Meet­ing.

It’s up to the moderator to decide whether a proposed amend­ment to a motion at Town Meeting is within the scope of the origi­nal warrant article that was announced to the town a couple of weeks before — and if the moderator decides it isn’t, the amend­ment is dead, with no recourse for appeal.

The town moderator appoints all nine members of the Advi­sory Board and can do so in secret, without revealing who or how many other candidates sought to be on the board.

Both town moderator candidates this year are lawyers, as is Norfolk’s current moderator, Dan Winslow, and the longtime moderator before that, Frank Gross.

Winslow isn’t running for reelection as moderator because he is running for state representative in the fall.

The term of town moderator is one year.

Advisory Board The Bylaw Committee, which reviews proposals to change the town’s non-zoning bylaws, is rarely at the center of conflict.

But the Advisory Board is. Most towns in Massachusetts have a finance committee, charged with reviewing proposed town expenditures and making recommendations to Town Meeting, which makes all appro­priations for the town. In Norfolk, the Advisory Board does all that and more. The Advisory Board deliberates about all proposed measures (whether financial or not) and makes rec­ommendations on all of them to Town Meeting. The Advisory Board also makes the first motion at Town Meeting on each warrant article, an important strategic advantage that puts dissenters at a disad­vantage, since the default posi­tion is whatever a majority of the nine-member Advisory Board de­cided beforehand. It’s common in Norfolk for the Advisory Board’s proposal for the town’s operating budget to be approved without amendment at Town Meeting. Smith and Van Tine both have experience on the Adviso­ry Board, and each has definiteopinions about how the board should be constituted. Van Tine sees the Advisory Board as a watchdog to encour­age fiscal restraint, and she says if she is elected moderator she’ll look for appointees who will take a skeptical view toward spend­ing. “I don’t think in this day and age there’s anything wrong with not wanting to raise taxes unless you absolutely have to. My taxes are too high, my neighbor’s are too high,” Van Tine said.

She said she values diversity on the Advisory Board when it comes to background, but that it’s not desirable to have free-spenders on the board that’s supposed to be looking after the town’s wallet. “I think that it is desirable to have people who come at prob­lems from diverse backgrounds and have different experiences and diverse interests. But I think it’s important that they have skepticism about spending mon­ey and taxing the townspeople,” Van Tine said. Smith said he wants to see an Advisory Board that includes a mix of interests and points of view, including those who see raising more revenue for the town as a priority.

“First of all it’s to be a diverse group of people, some of which are good with the financial pen­cil, with various interests,” Smith said. “… It’s hard to keep that bal­ance, but you’ve really got to try. … You try to vary it by age and gender and interests. But they have to be people who are going to sit down and talk things through, not ideologues who are going to do nothing but spout slogans.” “To say that everybody has to be skeptical about spending is an ideology, and it’s destructive to the town,” Smith said. “And it definitely should not be people who are just like-minded to the moderator.” In theory, the town moderator has no role in deciding whether an operating budget override of Proposition 2 ½ gets proposed or approved. But the moderator appoints the Advisory Board, and the Advisory Board shapes what sort of budget town officials pres­ent to Town Meeting, including whether there is an override and how much it’s for. So the moderator can have an indirect influence on what sort of spending (and taxing) proposals are made.

Smith said a mix of views on the Advisory Board is best. “I don’t think we’re served by having nine people that are just going to sharpen their pencils and go after things,” Smith said. “If you want a Town Meeting to last for days, having an Advisory Board like that would guarantee it, because they wouldn’t be con­sidered a group that examined the issues, the quality of town services that people want and how much they would be willing to pay for them.” “I would want some that feel on either side of the issue. That’s what I want. I want them to talk it out at their meetings. It’s not nine people who say, ‘Oh no, no override ever.’ Or nine people who say, ‘Oh, of course an over­ride’,” Smith said.

While Van Tine wants spend­ing skeptics, she said that doesn’t necessarily mean people who would vote against an override every time. She pointed to this year’s proposed override, for in­stance,

as an example of where a tax increase may be necessary to save police officers. “While I guess theoretically the idea of an override is anath­ema, they are necessary at certain times and in certain situations, like when you’re going to lose two police officers,” Van Tine said. “… I just want people to be skeptical, as well, to be so careful with ev­eryone’s

dollar that they agonize over it the way the current select­men agonized over it.” Smith and Van Tine agree on one thing when it comes to the Advisory Board: the current ver­sion is working well. Smith described it as close to the ideal mix of personalities and views that he wants to see. Van Tine said the current mix, of which she is currently a part, is working. “The current Advisory Board seems to work really well to­gether. So the members who are currently on and have served the town so well, I think I would keep any of them on who want to stay,” Van Tine said.

Town Meeting The most public aspect of a town moderator’s job is running Town Meeting, including annual Town Meeting in the spring and any special Town Meetings that the Board of Selectmen calls dur­ing the year. Both Smith and Van Tine say they applaud Winslow’s recent attempts to drum up interest in Town Meeting by trying to make it something of a community event, including musical perfor­mances,

presentations, spaghetti dinners, and raffle tickets.

But while Smith favors a de­liberative approach to Town Meeting, Van Tine is emphasiz­ing efficiency. Smith said he wants to make sure all sides of an issue are heard and that everyone has his say.

“Town Meeting wouldn’t go on forever. If people are being repetitive, you don’t allow that,” Smith said. “But people are mak­ing

decisions that affect how you live every day. It’s worth spend­ing a little time.” “Democracy takes work. If you want it efficient you can be the Supreme Soviet or the People’s Committee. Boy, they get things done pretty quick. Or the towns that are abolishing Town Meet­ing

and going to a town council form of government. I don’t think that’s what we want,” Smith said. “… I think a little personal inter­action is needed.” Van Tine said it’s possible to run a Town Meeting that is both fair and efficient. Limiting speak­ers to three minutes and the amount of times they can speak, for instance, makes sense, she said.

“I think the current system al­lows people enough time to make their points,” Van Tine said. “… I do know that certain topics need to be vetted. Does that mean it should be a six-day Town Meet­ing? No. I think it can be done in two. … I think that efficiency doesn’t rob people of a voice. I think it enables other people to have a voice.”

Norfolk’s annual town elec­tion is Tuesday, May 11.