[O]n Tuesday, residents of Vermont’s 246 municipalities turned out to vote on matters both local and global. Town meeting resolutions ranged from how to spend money in local school districts to how the state should fight climate change.
“It’s really democracy on a human scale,” says Rich Clark, a political science professor and director of the Polling Institute at Castleton University.
Clark is concerned that with more towns moving to the impersonal Australian ballot, Vermont’s town meeting tradition may be in decline. Along with other area researchers and a cohort of students, he’s helped launch a project to track participation levels in small towns across the state.
“We’re taking the temperature,” he said. “This is the annual physical for local democracy.”
On this week’s podcast, Clark talks about the group’s findings for Town Meeting Day 2018. Plus, VTDigger’s Tiffany Pache recaps a banner year for school budget approvals, Mike Faher follows up on the mood in Coventry, and Mike Polhamus covers a debate over pollution control measures near Lake Carmi.
Subscribe to the Deeper Dig on Apple Podcasts or Google Play. Music by Podington Bear.
