West Tisbury officials this week declined to take action on lowering the town meeting quorum and instead vowed to renew efforts to get voters out to the annual legislative gathering.
The select board had been considering reducing the quorum after struggling to get enough voters to start the meeting in recent years. But at the board’s Wednesday meeting, members felt that such a measure should be a last resort.
“I would like to see us make more of an effort to reach out,” said board member Jessica Miller. “I’ll stand in front of Cronig’s and tell all my friends.”
West Tisbury’s quorum for town meeting is five per cent of the town’s registered voters. At the 2023 annual town meeting that was 138 voters, a number the town struggled to muster and had to delay the meeting for about 30 minutes.
Other town’s quorums vary. Edgartown also has a five per cent quorum and Aquinnah has a 10 per cent. Chilmark has a 25-person quorum, Oak Bluffs has a 50-person quorum and Tisbury has a 100-person quorum.
Cynthia Mitchell, another select board member, wanted to see if the new committee about improving governance could help get the word out about upcoming town meetings.
“I would rather see that than do away with the quorum,” she said.
Doug Ruskin, a West Tisbury resident and a member of the Dukes County Commission, also urged the town to not ease the quorum requirements, though he agreed the five per cent bar can be difficult.
“But reducing the quorum concentrates power in a fewer number of people, which undermines the democratic process,” he wrote in a letter to the board. “Certainly encouraging participation is a far better approach than reducing required attendance, which is simply fixing the symptom rather than the problem.”
The board did not take an official vote on the matter, but resolved to explore email blasts, text message notifications and other ways to reach residents.
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