Letter: It’s time to abolish open Town Meeting

In the Jim Crow South, many methods were used to disenfranchise voters. Poll taxes, literacy tests, etc. served to preserve minority rule. Here in Acton we have an equally effective way to disenfranchise our neighbors and preserve minority rule. We call it “Open Town Meeting.  It effectively disenfranchises an entire subset of Acton, including single parents, the mobility challenged and anyone who doesn’t have a 9 to 5 job.

It’s 2023 not 1775. Acton is a city of more than 18,000 people – bigger than Boston was during the revolution! We kid ourselves to think that it should be governed like a small town of a few thousand. It’s time to abolish Open Town Meeting and replace it with something that better reflects the will of the entire population of our town. 

Chris Schaffner 

Old Marlboro Rd