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Although Sudbury has clung proudly to the tradition of open town meeting, the proceedings and attendance at our recent Annual Town Meeting (May 4 – 6) and the May 20 Special Town Meeting indicate that we Sudbury residents are misusing our legislative body and disdaining other functions of town government.
Attendance at these two recent meetings is the most conspicuous warning sign of dysfunction. We mustered a maximum 375 voters for any one of the three nights required to conduct the 2026 Annual Town Meeting. The Special Town meeting was attended by more than 900 voters. The Annual Town Meeting is the session of our legislature during which vital work products of our professional staff and several boards and committees are reviewed and acted upon. It is incongruous that the turnout for the Annual Town Meeting, which raised and appropriated more than $135 million, was so greatly exceeded by that of the Special Town Meeting.
Allowing the Annual Town Meeting to spill over to a third night was an unwarranted burden on voters, volunteer board and committee members, and Town staff. Despite being a three-night marathon, the proceedings of the Annual Town Meeting did not distinguish it as a great deliberative body. Instead, two examples of institutional dysfunction stand out. (1) Disregarding the diligent work of the Planning Board over several years, we were persuaded by assertions that our property values would be depressed if we enacted a carefully and publicly crafted update to our zoning bylaws which regulate the siting of cell phone towers. (2) Rather than focus on the purpose of spending $20,000 to support the public outreach of the recently empaneled committee charged with evaluating the future use of the Liberty Ledge/Sewataro property, we digressed at length to argue over its current and potential uses. Our actions on these two articles not only helped necessitate a third night, but they exemplified a troubling impulse to disdain boards, committees, and processes on which open town meeting relies in fulfilling its legislative function.
The Special Town Meeting itself was an unwarranted burden on voters and taxpayers (and not just because it had to be conducted so soon after the Annual Town Meeting). Speaking of a low bar, we should bear in mind how a small number of voters were able to call the May 20 Special Town Meeting. We must be judicious in exercising this ready power to precipitate a Special Town meeting. In view of the fact that a vote of no-confidence is a nullity, calling a Special Town Meeting to deal with it misused the legislative body. Also, compelling the Special Town Meeting to act on a citizens’ petition to establish a recall mechanism that would modify our form of government (the Town Charter) exemplified the impulse to disdain our municipal government and its public processes. Such a significant change should not have been handled in extraordinary haste; putting the matter before the May 20, 2026 Special Town Meeting circumvented genuine public scrutiny and input.
If we want to preserve Sudbury’s anachronistic legislative body, we have some work to do. Beyond striving to improve the tenor of discussions, we should evaluate the proceedings of the recent Annual and Special Town Meetings to ensure that in the future we do not misuse the legislative function and eschew other municipal bodies and processes.