Share This Article
Sudbury has three Citizen Petitions on the Annual Town Meeting Warrant this year. It’s fairly typical for there to be at least one Citizen Petition on the warrant. Upon review, there have only been five Annual Town Meetings without a Citizen Petition on the warrant since 2000.
To conduct the analysis, Sudbury Weekly used a combination of the Town of Sudbury’s warrant article search tool (here), and manual review of warrants. The Sudbury Weekly analysis found 77 petitions at Annual Town Meetings and 16 at Special Town Meetings for a grand total of 93 since 2000.
The most Citizen Petitions Sudbury Weekly could find on an Annual Town Meeting warrant since 2000 was seven. That happened in 2004 and 2020. There were six in 2014, 2010, 2005 and 2002. But be careful with that number for 2002—boards, committees and even department heads often submitted articles by petition in those days. All of the petitions in 2002 were submitted by staff or committee.
The subject of Citizen Petitions varied overall, but there were some recurring themes. Bylaw changes, rail trails and senior citizen tax exemptions show up as citizen petitions repeatedly and frequently. Same for land conservation, preservation and sustainability-related petitions.
So what are the odds of success of a Citizen Petition? Almost exactly 50/50. Of the 93 petitions in the analysis, 46 passed at their respective Town Meetings. Interestingly, five of seven petitions passed in 2020. But during the only other year with as many petitions, 2004, just three passed.
Since 2010, only ten of the petitions had budget amounts listed in the articles. In some cases the petitions would clearly require funding but failed to list how much in the article that made it to print in the warrant. However, the lack of “monied” articles was largely because a significant percentage of the petitions proposed policy or bylaw changes that don’t come at a cost.
Citizen Petitions at Special Town Meetings is a relatively recent phenomenon. Sudbury Weekly found no petitions at Special Town Meetings between 2000 and 2011.
As for 2025, what’s old is new again. There are three articles submitted by way of Citizen Petition. One is for sidewalk funding, one is un update to the means tested tax exemption, and one calls for cutting the Community Preservation Act surcharge from 3% to 1.5%. Sidewalks and walkways were the subject of Citizen Petitions in 2015 and 2016. Senior citizen tax relief was the subject of petitions in 2015, 2011, 2008, 2007, 2004, and 2003. As for the CPA surcharge—a similar proposal was defeated in 2010 and another was indefinitely postponed in 2011.
