20 Facts About Town meeting

Town meeting is a form of direct democracy in which most or all of the members of a community are eligible to legislate policy and budgets for local government.

Town meeting has been used in portions of the United States, principally in New England, since the 17th century.

Town meeting is a form of local government practiced in the U S region of New England since colonial times and in some western states since at least the late 19th century.

Typically conducted by New England towns, town meeting can refer to meetings of other governmental bodies, such as school districts or water districts.

In colonial New England there was very little separation between church and town governance, but town meeting continued to play a secular role after the disestablishment of the state churches and form the core of government for New England Towns today.

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Representative Town Meeting used by some larger towns consists solely of a large number of members elected to office.

Some towns use a so-called Financial Town Meeting, where an Open Town Meeting exists with limited jurisdiction to vote only on financial affairs and the town's legislative powers have been vested in a Town Council.

In Maine, the town meeting system originated during the period when Maine was a district of Massachusetts.

Between sessions, the board of selectmen interprets the policy set at Town Meeting and is assigned numerous duties including: approving all town non-school expenditures, authorizing highway construction and repair, serving as town purchasing agent for non-school items, issuing licenses, and overseeing the conduct of all town activities.

The men who went to that town meeting hammered out the abstract principles under which they would live and regulated the most minute details of their lives.

Town meeting often had a reputation for being "active, suspicious, contradictory, and cantankerous, " but it was well regarded by others.

Open town meeting is the form of town meeting in which all registered voters of a town are eligible to vote, together acting as the town's legislature.

Open town meeting is direct democracy, while its alternatives, representative town meeting and town council, are representative democracy.

The Town Clerk serves as the clerk of the meeting by recording its results.

The townspeople instead elect Town Meeting Members by precinct to represent them and to vote on the issues for them.

The action of the joint town meeting is binding upon all communities of the regional district.

Town meeting can amend the warrant articles before voting on them, and can conduct non-binding discussions of other issues, but cannot make other binding votes without this notice to town voters.

Budgetary Town Meeting is a variation of the Open Meeting, but only the annual town operating budget as presented by the governing body can be voted on by the registered voters.

The purpose of town meeting is to elect municipal officers, approve annual budgets and conduct any other business.

Some small municipalities of Spain operate under a town meeting system called a Concejo abierto that dates from the middle ages.