Watman's World

The special New Hampshire political season known as “Annual Meeting Agony” is just around the corner. Starting in February we’ll all have the chance to attend budget hearings, deliberative sessions, board meetings and finally the Annual Town and School District meetings.
There will be many stimulating letters to the editor. Signs will be printed and attached to most every telephone pole. Most will be easy to read and understand. “Vote Yes” or “Vote No” would only suffer from further explanation.
If the issues are important and/or the dollar costs are high, there may even be home-made publications offering a variety of reasons for how people should vote. The successors of Tom Paine will sign their epistles. Others treatises will be unsigned. These will lead to anguished cries of “Who?” from the opponents and activate the area’s private eyes and newspaper reporters. There will be a dozen different people blamed and honored as suspected authors. Not one will actually be responsible.
Eventually, at the height of the cabin fever season, those souls that haven’t morphed into parts of their furniture will open their back doors and charge head first through whatever weather greets them and trudge to the Annual Meetings. Bad weather will tend to encourage no votes and sunshine and warmth will promote a more positive outlook about almost anything.
That gives us all about two months to get ready. Many will chose to do research into all the facts of the given situation that interests them. They will be prepared to ask reasonable (those that can be answered) and unreasonable (those that can’t) questions and will know as much about the specific issue as any sane person would choose to grasp.
These are the individuals that come into the meeting room with note pads, binders and copies of previous town and school reports that are carefully index tabbed for ease of access. These people can be dangerous for anyone actually listening.
These folks usually arrive early and sit close to the microphones. They often choose aisle seats and tell folks that their knees were injured and they need room to stretch. The more people you see in these choice seats armed with loads of paper, the more certain you can be that you’re in for a long and possibly even interesting session.
The seats are usually hard and uncomfortable to sit in for more than a few minutes. Some have even suggested that this is a deliberate attempt by the “officials” to discourage people from coming to meetings and certainly from staying all the way until the end.
I’ve waited many years to see any individual make a motion to buy comfortable seating for these town summits. It won’t happen. Truthfully, veterans of these meetings know that there are other much cheaper ways of handling the problem.
When either the seating gets uncomfortable or you see one of the studious individuals headed to the microphone with an armful of note pads, that’s a signal for long-time attendees to go for a walk.
It’s best if some local group has organized some type of food sale. That way you can at least temporarily avoid the headache that listening to opponents often brings, enjoy some home-made cookies and let everyone know that you’re simply supporting whatever group with whatever cause that is sponsoring the community feed.
Of course, there are some local political strategists who believe that the best way to get their way is not to have any food on sale during the meeting. They theorize that hunger will eventually drive their opponents home before the key votes. The secret is to come prepared for a long meeting. Fill your pockets with candy bars, pack a few extra cans of soda in your briefcase or backpack.
You don’t always have to do a great deal of research or deliver an eloquent speech to influence a decision. If you can ask a very simple but thought provoking questions or statements, it can be more valuable than hours of searching for facts and figures.
The following are just a few of more common assertions that I’ve heard used at meetings over the years.
The next town over has one and we don’t. We tried that years ago and it failed. Our young people need this. It’s a great idea but we can’t afford it right now. We owe it to our senior citizens. It’s illegal. It will save money in the long-haul. This needs much more study before we can consider doing it. Prices are going up and it will cost more if we wait. Costs are bound to go down if we wait awhile. The machine is going to fall apart if we don’t replace it. We can nurse it along for at least one more year.
With the frigid weather and too much snow it’s good to look ahead and realize that winter is on its way out. Around here, Town Meetings signal the change of seasons. After that, we can expect some sunshine and lots of mud.