Where Are Bourne's Voters? - Editorial
Last Monday night, it took 35 minutes for enough registered voters and residents of Bourne to show up to Special Town Meeting to get the meeting started.
The town’s bylaws state that the necessary quorum for Town Meeting is 125 registered voters. So why, in a town of just about 20,000, did it take the chairman of the select board going down the hall to the Bourne High School volleyball game and asking people to please come to Town Meeting to meet the requirement of a mere 125 people?
We have a few plausible answers to this puzzling question. For instance, the most obvious answer may be that residents simply forgot that Town Meeting was taking place. The Enterprise did its job getting the word out, but what about the town itself? There was little—if any—signs at Bourne Town Hall, and there was no announcement posted on the town website about an event as important as Town Meeting. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any information on the most-recent Town Meeting on the town’s website unless you knew where to look.
Aside from better communication from the town, another possible scapegoat could be a simple lack of controversy attractive enough to draw spectators. Most of the articles on the warrant for October’s Special Town Meeting could easily be viewed with ambivalence unless, for example, you own a business on Main Street and are a big fan of tube men and feather signs. Not every resident can be expected to be concerned enough to show up and vote at Town Meeting, but for less than 125 out of 20,000 residents to show up? That’s a 0.625 percent threshold that the town had to meet, and it took more than half an hour to do so.
This isn’t the first time Town Meeting has gotten a late start due to the lack of a quorum, but things weren’t always this way. Hundreds of residents used to pile into Bourne High School in the mid-2010s for Town Meeting. In 2016, more than 600 people packed into BHS to vote at Special Town Meeting; but then again, the police station was on the warrant that year. Three years later, Special Town Meeting in October 2019 drew nearly 900 people, all wanting to be part of Bourne’s conversation regarding a ban on recreational marijuana in town (which was narrowly upheld). When compared with plans for a new police station and talks surrounding marijuana, the various zoning amendments of the most recent Town Meeting warrant fall a little flat.
Perhaps Bourne residents missed the memo about last week’s Special Town Meeting, or perhaps they just weren’t interested enough to turn out in person for it. But a third yet equally as plausible explanation for the lack of attendance? Look no further than “Monday Night Football,” featuring the Patriots versus the Bears. Is it worth missing Town Meeting for a 33-14 loss? We’re not sure, but we hope that there are better circumstances for spring’s Town Meeting.