Top issues voters will decide this Town Meeting Day

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - Tuesday is Town Meeting Day in Vermont.

In addition to the usual agenda items like municipal and school budgets, this year 41 Vermont communities are considering whether to allow retail marijuana sales.

Many more are considering questions about climate change or lowering carbon footprints.

With about three-quarters of municipalities opting for Australian ballot voting, I asked Karen Horn, the director of public policy and advocacy for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, whether the traditional Town Meeting Day is now a thing of the past.

“I don’t think that it’s going away,” Horn said. “I think that there are towns that will return to floor town meetings when the pandemic allows. We have 75% of towns voting on Australian via Australian ballot. You can still walk into a physical voting space this year and put your ballot in the machine. There’s some chance later to be doing drive-by voting. So there’s a lot of options but I don’t think that Vermont is going to give up on floor town meetings by any stretch of the imagination.”

Watch the video to see their full conversation.

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