Gemma SeymourWhile I opposed the vote in #Brattleboro to rescind the representative form of town meeting, and while I do not believe that the vote and its consequences have been handled in legally correct fashion—that by #VT law, RTM must stay in place until and unless the #Vermont Legislature ratifies the charter change—because of the necessity of focusing on the larger argument, there was unfortunately no opportunity to debate questions of whether or not RTM needed any kind of reform. … #VTpol #VTpoli
The Charter of the Town of Brattleboro requires that there be 140 representatives. One point that has been raised in opposition to RTM is that many of seats have not been contested, resulting in many representatives being elected by caucus vote of the individual districts at the pre-RTM informational session. This resulted in many residents having misgivings about whether or not the representatives truly have the confidence of the electorate. I am not insensitive to this argument; however …
it also needs to be understood that every single voter in town had the equal opportunity to run for Representative, as well as the equal opportunity to show up at the informational session and request to be appointed by caucus vote.
That being said, Brattleboro has a population of about 12000 people, with about 9000 registered voters. I am of the belief that the concept of Dunbar's Number suggests that the optimal number of representatives for a population of 12000 is about 80 representatives …
If we only consider the registered voters, then the optimal number of representatives might be about 60.
Reducing the number of representatives from 140 to 80 would have dramatically increased the competitiveness of the elections, and would have dramatically increased the confidence of the electorate that the people seated were duly selected by the voters.
Unfortunately, we never got to that point, because the process of reform was short-circuited by the push to rescind RTM, entirely.