The Peterborough Select Board and Budget Committee unanimously recommended adding all 22 proposed warrant articles to the warrant at the March 3 public budget hearing in Town Hall, though residents raised questions about Warrant Article 22.
Following two months of joint Select Board and Budget Committee meetings, there was little deliberation over the proposed articles at the hearing. Select Board member Tyler Ward told the audience that if it seemed as though officials were breezing through the decisions, it was because they had collectively spent months reviewing and becoming familiar with each article.
The final article, Article 22, asks voters to approve “Blank Time” at all future meetings. According to the language of the article, beginning with the next Annual Town Meeting, the moderator would designate two minutes of “Blank Time” during each Deliberative Session and Town Meeting.
The article states that the moment is intended as a symbolic acknowledgment of all who live within, contribute to or are affected by Peterborough’s democratic process, especially those not eligible to vote.
Town Administrator Nicole MacStay said 25 residents petitioned the article, but the concept was initiated by Shen Bolun, a political performing artist from China who was residing at the MacDowell artists colony.
Budget Committee member Dan Grosz spoke on Bolun’s behalf.
“He thought he could contribute his talent as a way of promoting democracy and getting people to appreciate what we have in our town versus what he has experienced in China,” Grosz said.
In a letter Bolun wrote and signed before returning to China in February, he described his curiosity about Peterborough’s democratic process and asked colony members to petition on his behalf.
“I attended Select Board meetings to follow budget discussions, visited the Unitarian Church, and I joined the weekly Saturday protests,” he wrote. He also mentioned taking part in a presentation at the Mariposa Museum and attended a foreign policy forum discussing America’s international role.
“Somehow, I found the New England Town Meeting, an ancient bedrock of direct democracy,” he said, noting how he learned the warrant article petition process.
He described his proposal as a poetic pause within procedure.
“I proposed a petitioned warrant article for the April deliberative session, not to request funding or change policy, but to propose a two-minute moment of collective silence,” he said.
After the Select Board recommended adding the article to the budget, resident Scott Johnson raised his concerns.
“You say we can introduce this type of behavior into Town Meeting with enough signatures?” he asked. “I just wonder if you’re opening up a can of worms potentially where people utilize this feature to do other things just like this, and before you know it you have a half-dozen things before you start the meeting.”
Budget Committee Chair Rick Lessler said the decision is up to the voters.
Voters can weigh in on the proposed warrant articles at the April 7 Deliberative Session and May 13 Town Meeting.