John D. Leone, Town Meeting moderator and a Precinct 8 member, offers the following views about the upcoming meetings:
This year several precincts have contested races for Town Meeting members and several have uncontested races. If you live in one of these precincts you can run as a write-in candidate. Just because someone is up for reelection does not mean that you cannot win a seat on Town Meeting.
On the April 6 election ballot for Town Meeting member seats, Precincts 3, 10 and 17 have open positions. These are seats for which no one is running. Precinct 3 and 10 each have one vacancy and Precinct 17 has two vacancies. I urge you to consider running for one of these open seats as a write-in candidate to represent your precinct.
As a write-in candidate, you do not have to collect signatures to get on the ballot. All that is required is that you speak with your friends, family and neighbors who live in your precinct and ask them to write you in for Town Meeting on the ballot. Another option is to go to your precinct’s poll on Election Day and hand out small stickers, preprinted with your name and address, to the folks going in to vote and ask them to place the sticker in the write-in box and check it off for you.
You can get elected and you will make a difference to the town. You may even find that you enjoy Town Meeting and the feeling of giving back to and contributing to our community.
Before casting your ballot this year, I urge you to go to the Town Meeting’s 2018 website to see your representative’s votes and attendance records before you make your decision in either contested or uncontested races. Click here >>
Town Meeting is the legislative branch of Arlington’s town government. It is made up of 252 elected representatives, 12 from each of the town’s 21 precincts. Town Meeting is the cornerstone of our town’s democratic process; it makes all of the zoning and town bylaws and changes to those them. It controls the purse strings of town government by a thorough analysis of the proposed budgets and capital budgets and votes the final approval of those budgets and their expenditures. Town Meeting debates and votes upon the warrant articles that directly affect you and your family on a daily basis and which set the character of our town.
For several years, Town Meeting has used electronic voting. Two of its many benefits: The attendance of Town Meeting members has been recorded, and we know how each member voted on most of the articles.
If you would like to discuss the duties of a Town Meeting Member, feel free to call me at 781-641-3546 or email me at: JDLmoderator at gmail.com. Please vote on Saturday, April 6.
This information, which includes advice viewpoint was published Monday, March 25, 2019.
