you for tuning in to belmont in thirty i'm joanna jewel is your host i'm senior multimedia journalist for the belmont citizen herald and good local belmont dot com and i'm pleased to have on the show today as our guest town moderator michael wo mayor mike has lived in belmont for forty two years he served on the war committee for fifteen years as its chairman for three years he was elected as a town meeting member in one thousand nine hundred one and in two thousand and eight he became our town moderator it's been about ten years now so i want to welcome you mike thank you to our show nice to be here thank you so i also forgot to mention that you've lived in belmont with your wife jean and you recently celebrated your forty fifth wedding anniversary had we did raise just three children here so congratulations on that on that milestone i just thought of a good idea to have you on the show because we're in the midst of town meeting now we recently finished the tammy in the special town meeting and now we're gearing up for the next town meeting part two on the financial articles and since it's been about ten years i thought i'd be a good idea to have you on the show to reflect on those ten years and this most recent town meeting which i believe you told me recently was was probably how did you what did you say about it more preparation the most and it was so right next more challenging and difficult because  lot of passions around different issues right so why don't you tell tell our viewers what exactly is your role as town moderator what does that mean sure well town meeting we have a representative town meeting in belmont unlike an open town meeting where everybody comes so there are thirty six representatives from each precinct elected for three year term so a total of two hundred eighty eight elected representatives and  my role is to oversee the conduct of town meetings so we do a lot of perpetration to try to ensure that it will go as smoothly as possible and then i have to manage the town meeting itself right as we go through in this case i think between the most recent segment a and now segment be some twenty six articles i'm responsible to run a fair town meeting in which all points of view are heard on the one hand but at the same time try to ensure that it moves as as rapidly as possible right in that context so that it doesn't digress into trivial matters stay focused on the particular issue that we're discussing ok well to give our viewers a better idea of what you do what you just described where going to cut to a and you're on four questions coming on at thirty six zero point four about it's a representative town meeting it would be an insult to town meeting members if thirty or forty people who were not town meeting members were allowed to speak we had the longest line in my ten years as town meeting moderator wishing to speak it's a right because you ran for town meeting and you represent the citizens of this community thank you that really does capture what you do like i mean and in that short time i think our viewers have got a pretty good idea of what you go to tell the moderator if you're captured some of the fine moments of the most riveting how do you do it how i mean you have to have a thick skin you have to have patience you can't lose it like just how do you do it it's also parenting in a way well i have a lot of experience in public speaking and in dealing with politics right i know your new role as as president of the massachusetts taxpayers foundation you said for twenty five years i was very much in the public fray there mainly at the state level but dealing with difficult issues and trying to be fair on the one hand letting people have their say but of the other hand cutting things short when they're not being fair with or going beyond  and your role as how moderator has has changed over the past and i think there are a couple of things one has happened really on its own and that is there seems to be a greater interest in town meeting on the part of the citizens of the town which i think is a good thing this most recent election we had in the eight precincts with twelve openings for each precinct i think seven of the eight precincts had a contest and then the full complement of people running yeah seven of the eight a contest so i think that shows greater interest and then on town meeting floor clearly there are more people speaking  the issues and when saying just a handful of people who regularly speak but it's much more representative and diverse and people i think are doing their homework more yeah these issues are complicated to say the least limit the extraneous comments and the long winded to write comments so i had a policy that reduces the maximum that you can talk from ten minutes to five the same time encourage people they don't need to take the full  minutes and they don't need to repeat what somebody else has said but from ten minutes to five and then the other thing was on one of the clips to limit the questions to two so one question one follow up in the past we've had people who've asked five six questions and follow up in a more follow up and it becomes a back and forth between some town official area somebody and that's not fair to the rest of town meeting i agree one most recent town meeting but before we do is there any other town mean that you clearly remember as much as this most recent one like where there was a lot of contention a lot of emotion well there a honestly can't recall the town meetings over the last decade but i mean one i still have nightmares about i don't know well clearly this one side minae the most recent one had some of the most challenging wondering in the sense that there are a lot of passions around right and part of that is is we've seen an increase in the number of citizen petitions you know we had the welcoming petition have you had the pays you so for a lot of passion around around those issues and as a result more difficult in some respects potentially this most recent town meeting with between the pay as you throw the welcoming town designation and liquor license transferability you have to do a lot of preparation can you tell our viewers about how you how you d that sure we have regular perpetration sessions with the town leaders that word selectman the town clerk the warrant committee and so forth we do that regularly but in addition i try where it's so helpful to meet with individuals who either representing or might present a petition to a town meeting so an example of pays you throw him slack was the individual who took the lead in that it was a citizens petition so i met with cam on two separate occasions at least an hour an hour and a half each time to try to make sure we were on the same page he understood the limits of the debate and vance  and so there would be no surprises he agreed that this was not a debate on page you throw obviously that was why it was there but it was really a debate on what town meeting felt about the override twenty seven years ago when there were still pertain so it was a tricky issue to try to oversee but it was a very helpful discussion with discussions with kim another example of the proponents of the amendment  transferability of the liquor license yeah aaron and tommy i sat down with them they said we'd like to do something that from their point of view was a middle ground how do we go about it so we talked that through said defeated sometimes largely sometimes they pass sometimes defeated but i think they're often regardless of the outcome they often help clarify the issue so i think the discussion around this amendment was very helpful in bringing to the surface the question which is who is license is this is this a town license if you will the right control or is this license one granted to a liquor store or restaurant that they have some rights over it and therefore there should be some transfer ability and that was a very good discussion i thought on town meeting floor and i think the amendment raised that issue in the end town meeting felt that it was not transferable it was really a town license an asset and i had a town asset and shouldn't go with the business if you will of somebody sells the business in the same place as he or she really hone the light no not town meeting set but that was the essence of the issue and the key for town meeting i think and what i try to help do is bring the issue the key issues to the surface this is the democratic body this is the legislative body valmont right let's have a good discussion on the issue and then vote i mean that's what democracy is about and i think we did have a good discussion on that it was very explain that we were not going to have a discussion that was beyond the scope of the amendment of the motion a discussion on president trumps policies or congressional and moves or whatever this was not a discussion on that ye very easy to get off track with that one yes because that's obviously where a lot of the passions and motions came from that's fine but that's not what we were debating and i think by and large people really did follow that a clear when i introduce the article what the parameters are right and then stay within those parameters what kind of preparations you do for that you know you might as well as well yeah i mean particularly we review what the individuals proponents who are opponents might say where they have slides i review those slides a couple of them seem to go a little far outside the scope in their present of a motion that reflected pretty much what as i understand what we do today so they did their own preparations so a lot of people and the police were involved so a lot of people work not just to try to have a civil discussion around us so that the more preparation that's done ahead of time the smoother a town meeting can can go generally speaking and that's of course true in life i think that with  that i know at this particular time mean there were a lot of non town meeting members actually sitting in the audience have you ever seen anything like that before you know sometimes though in the end there weren't as many as i thought there might be given the passions  the and the requests for non town meeting members to speak but they behaved i mean fine i thought there might be pro or con some disruptions but there really weren't there were yeah there's been a lot of difficult issues but town meeting i think is handler it's very well how do you manage to stay neutral because i'm sure on some issues you might feel one way or another but you can't express that and that is that you find that difficult well i don't find it difficult but it's very important i saw i was on the warren committees you mention for fifteen years and then i was chair for three years my role is chair was very different from being a member of the committee as a member i could speak up on how i felt about an issue as chair i might do that but my larger role was to bring the committee together you know understand and have them express their view and then pass on and then vote have signed on to town meeting in the case of moderator i even go one step further because i'm not i don't even vote and i don't express a position at all but i think it's absolutely essential that my role be one partial and that's my role government in our body our lead local legislative body the town meeting i value that my whole career has been devoted to that in one way or another and so for me it's you know a labor of well now we have another town meeting coming up part two of the spring town meeting on the financial articles and the big the biggest issues we discussed before this show was the  operating budget capital expenditures and the four proposals that the retirement board put forth articles so i thought it would be good for you to talk about talk about these issues for people aren't familiar with them why you think those are going to be the biggest the biggest issues at this upcoming timing so start with the operating budget sure well the operating budget is obviously the key document that town meeting approves or not each year sometimes there's a lot of contention around the budget it depends on circumstances the but how tight the budget is if there are disagreements between the school committee and the selectmen on the warren commission now that it can but this year and in recent years actually it seems that the process has been smoother right and the work all three of those major bodies and the capital budget committee have been united in what they present yes to the town meeting and so one that's the case as it is this year i think it will go quite smoothly in the operating  budget it's hard to dispute will say well what kind of town meeting member do the answer is you can't i mean you've got a one hundred million dollars budget and you're not going to come in and be and make any changes because gone through several process but occasionally what individual done meeting members identified a particular line item the right sound about right on something and you've made an impact you are on town meeting floor or they've set in motion something that an issue that had not been received may be sufficient to ten so they can have some role this year though i think it will go smoothly you do i do with a capital budget retirement board articles based on the lead night and what i hear i have seen are to talk around town so and the planning meetings who do so i have a sense you know where the controversy is going to come from and i think the retirement board articles are the most controversial right the retirement board is an autonomous body it's bringing in these it doesn't report the selectmen it is though they had some cruise missile like me have one appointee so town meeting is going to make a decision on their proposals the biggest from a monetary point of view proposal would increase the cost of living allowance for retirees belmont retirees right now by about two thousand a year i have the base would increase from twelve thousand to fourteen thousand now you know the amount that the retiree would receive would not be the additional large but there are lots of retirees so this would add to un funding obligation of the town's pension system is already seriously underfunded so that's the debate that will take place not what should or shouldn't receive this pr but can we afford it right and so that's one of the four articles the thing one article twenty are don't want what are you doing to prepare for this upcoming town meaning well we've had two perpetration pieces i need to understand any of these easy issues well enough so i can monitor and carried out fairly right on moderator so i guess i don't like to be blindsided so a lot of  process so we'll see how it goes but you do a lot of a lot of preparation and spring is definitely a very busy time of year for you i'm sure you look forward to the summer months when things right slow down a little bit although  also part of your role as those committee appointments and you're also on the search committee for the new town administrator so that'll that although it will take some time and also i have some work this summer to do and and then new appointments to the but the heavy time is in the spring though we do usually have we belmont a special town meeting in the fall yeah but that's usually just one night so yeah nothing ever in the winter once in a while something well january coming on the show mike's really been a pleasure having you and i really love that video montage that we show and i'm looking forward to this upcoming town meeting i hope that i think you said maybe it'll be about  know i hope you can do it to another matter if you know it's all up to you now keep it on track in the longer town meeting members right i mean everybody has the right to speak right i mean right there in line they have to speak unless someone moves in i think it's great i hope you'll tune into our next episode of belmont in thirty and if you have any suggestions for future shows please email me at belmont at work at local dot com and thank you to all the belmont media