To the editor:
The apparent lack of cogent thought in the planning of the Marblehead Town Hall Meeting of May 2025 was bad enough, but it was topped by even more absurdities in the meeting’s execution. Allow me to recount the numerous outrageous ways.
First, long before the scheduled Town Meeting, the Select Board knew that the agenda contained 52 Articles, some of which were quite contentious and likely would engender extended discussion. Yet, the Town Meeting was set for just one evening to begin at 7 p.m. With children or the elderly at home needing family attention, work the next morning looming, and other obligations residents face, for how many hours did the Select Board expect residents to attend such a meeting? Until the wee hours of the night? So, why wasn’t the meeting scheduled for several nights, either in seriatim, or preferably over at least a 7 to 10-day period?
Second, although the Town Meeting had been scheduled well prior to May 5, the 52 Articles to be voted upon were not distributed community-wide by email until 1:02 p.m. on the day of the May 5 7 p.m. scheduled meeting. Residents have busy lives and should have all relevant documents distributed at least several days (if not a week) before such a meeting to allow residents to read and give thought to them. It was only on the night of May 5 that residents – and not all resident attendees, because of an insufficient number of printed copies – obtained the Finance Committee Report. This Report presented not just the articles to be voted upon, but financial information, comments, and recommendations; all this information (and more) should have been distributed to the residents community-wide at least several days (if not a week) before the meeting. So, what is the more in the prior sentence? The initial night that the Town Meeting actually occurred, May 6, the moderator orally presented amendments to the three Articles being considered by attendees. All amendments were known long before the May 5 scheduled meeting, but none were distributed to residents to read or consider. People want to be knowledgeable before they vote, and these numerous communication inadequacies preclude it! (The language of some amendments was so convoluted that, after only orally hearing them, many residents still did not understand their meanings and potential effects.)
Third, the May 5 meeting venue was the Village Middle School auditorium, with an “overflow” room into which visual and audio would be piped. The capacity of this venue was sorely inadequate despite the well-known contentious articles that previously generated provocative public debate, so that an unprecedented number of residents would likely want to participate at the Town Meeting. The inadequacy certainly must have caused a potential fire hazard. But the adjournment announced that night (after over an hour waiting for the meeting to begin) was officially attributed to poor piped-in screen viewing by attendees seated in the “overflow” room. In fact, not only had the visual technology planning been inadequate, but so were the technology preparations for two other important meeting facets: (1) to provide good audio reception for those in the “overflow” room; and (2) to provide functioning electronic clickers for voting and automatic tabulation. The latter were not distributed, apparently because the technology was not operating properly in the meeting venue. How were residents’ votes to be counted? By hand count! (Or so I was informed by a registration official the night of May 6.) How long would that have taken for each article, and how many recounts would have been requested or needed? How much time would that approach have consumed, and how many articles would have proceeded to the vote stage before residents became disgusted and walked out? And what is so dramatically different in having the Town Meeting in an “overflow” room with piped-in visual and audio connections (and working electronic voting clickers) from allowing residents to participate in such a meeting contemporaneously on Zoom from home (with an appropriate app developed and used to vote?
Fourth, on May 6, a community-wide notification of the meeting readjournment’s venue and time was not sent until 2 hours – actually 5:02 p.m. by email and 5:04 p.m. by an automated phone call — before the newly scheduled 7 p.m. Town Meeting was to begin. That timing was largely unhelpful to those residents who needed to schedule child or elder care or to those who were unable to change that evening’s work schedules at the last minute. And yet, more than 1700 Marblehead residents attended the May 6 meeting at the Marblehead High School Field House (which should have been the original venue) because of their strong feelings about some of the articles to be presented, discussed, and voted upon – this time with electronic voting clickers, which took no less than an hour to assure their proper technological operation. These problems should have been avoided altogether with proper planning.
Fifth, on May 6, the moderator initially did not make clear the substance of several motions on which he called a vote. Finally, a resident who had the floor during a comment period instructed the moderator on what he needed to do before calling a vote. Subsequently, the moderator responded adequately, but shouldn’t the moderator be sufficiently trained so that there is no confusion among residents on what they are voting? Moreover, after the moderator read aloud proposed amendments, he permitted the authors of the amendments to explain and justify their amendments. But the moderator imposed no time limit upon such authors. Thus, the authors generally talked at excessive length and sometimes with redundancies. Wouldn’t it be better to circulate to residents 7-10 days ahead of the Town Meeting, such written amendments, with their justifications, so that residents could attend the meeting informed and ready to participate cogently? Furthermore, the moderator stated that commenters at the mics would have 2 minutes to talk and that he would not allow repeats of sentiments expressed previously. Nonetheless, the moderator permitted some commenters to talk for longer, and some to voice views entirely duplicative of one or more previous commenter. At points in the evening, there was a palpable sense of frustration among attendees with the moderator, as well as with speakers. And, with all of this exasperation, by 10:30 p.m., only 2 important articles – Article 23 (Amend Zoning Bylaws – 3A Multi-Family Overlay District) and Article 34 (Marblehead High School Roof and HVAC System) — had been voted upon. Tired and frustrated residents left in droves to relieve children’s and elder caretakers and to prepare for their next workday.
I hope that officials will take this recount of the multiple absurdities to heart and make concerted changes to the procedures and operations of future Town Hall meetings.
Nina J. Crimm
Ticehurst Lane
