With this year’s Annual Town Meeting and Town Election over, it is time to reflect on the experience. To this end, the Press interviewed voters at both events, and discovered a few trends.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, those who voted in favor of the plan to rebuild the Hildreth Elementary School, the driving issue of the year, were almost universally eager and proud to discuss their reasons for doing so. Taken as a group, pro-school voters cited a wide array of arguments as the deciding factors in why they voted as they did, though individual voters were generally focused on a single issue. The most common was a concern that failing to immediately address safety concerns would be more costly in the long run due to potential liability issues. However, this was far from the only argument; as resident Ken Riddle colorfully said, “At some point, it’s better to replace something than to try to repair it, like when you have an old car that’s only worth $4,000, and the transmission goes. You don’t want to sink another $4,000 into patching up a car that’s only worth that much.”
On the other hand, those who voted against the school were generally less talkative, likely for multiple reasons. Many, especially in the immediate aftermath of the Town Meeting vote, were likely uninterested in rehashing a painful failure. Others declined to be identified due to apprehension over public opinion, with one anonymous voter saying that she was “already hated enough, without this adding to it.” Of course, there are always exceptions, and those who spoke did so passionately and, in contrast to the pro voters, with equal weight paid to many issues. Twenty-six-year resident Melissa Marteney exemplifies this group, noting a variety of concerns with the project, including a feeling that a total rebuild of a building in the middle of its expected lifespan is overkill, a concern about how the concentration of funds will affect the town’s finances in years to come, and a worry that the tax increase will push seniors out of town.
One thing both sides had in common was a long-term commitment to their positions. Not a single interviewed voter reported changing his or her mind based on arguments presented during the two-hour discussion at Town Meeting. In fact, interviewees on both sides said that listening to those arguments had caused them to become “more resolved” to vote as they did.
Another thing that both sides had in common was an appreciation of the work done by Worcester Sound & Lights, the company contracted to provide the audio/video feed to the auditorium during the meeting. Described as “excellent,” “amazing,” and “far better than expected,” the quality and clarity of the projection received universal praise. In contrast to fears that those relegated to the auditorium after the gymnasium reached capacity would be essentially ignored, those who visited both areas reported that the proceedings were more easily observed on the screen in the auditorium than in person in the gym.
