Lynnfield Town Administrator Rob Dolan is asking residents to participate in “the purest form of democracy” and attend the April 24 Town Meeting at the middle school.
“You as a citizen may have just as much say as a Select Board member or any citizen to vote on the future of your town and the budget,” he said on the most recent episode of Town Talk last week. “One of our responsibilities as a town … is a quorum. We must have 175 people at Town Meeting in order to operate.”
Dolan outlined the reasons why it’s important to participate in Town Meeting, saying it is “where we appropriate the money as a community for our public schools, for our police department, for our fire department and our capital budget. I know you are interested in road repair and we have an appropriation that is amongst the biggest amounts in the history of Lynnfield (but) we cannot build those roads unless you participate in Town Meeting and we get that quorum. Town government cannot operate without that quorum.”
Dolan appealed to residents’ sense of civic duty, saying that “this is part of living in a town with our form of government.” He said today’s Town Meetings with electronic voting are much more efficient and less time consuming than in the past “when people raised their hands and had to be counted,” and that members and staff of town commissions and boards are present and available to provide helpful information and answer questions.
“If you want our town to be strong and move forward, I ask you for your participation,” Dolan said to wrap up the show.
