Quick Town Meeting Post

(Updated)

Don't forget to vote tomorrow.

Haik has an excellent post on endorsements and predictions. (I do not agree with his endorsements, but I think his predictions are pretty good. I'm not sure about Ward 2, though.)

In case you missed it, here is my post on the school budget. (Short version: Vote "no." I have a good reason, really. Don't worry, they still get a 7.93% increase from other, non-local sources, including our state property taxes.) Did you see in the Free Press that the school budget has increased 42% (from $29.2 million to $41.6 million) in the past five years?

Last, don't forget about Exit Voices, the election blog project of Bill Simmon and Channel 17. Stop on in and share your after meeting/after voting thoughts.

Oh yeah, and Channel 17 has after election coverage starting at 7:30 pm tomorrow evening.

Happy Town Meeting Eve.

Update: Ack! How could I forget this? Yesterday's Free Press had a guest column by UVM's Frank Bryan about Town Meeting Day. Check it out.

Here's an excerpt:

For decades our representatives in Washington have come home to hold "town meetings" on this or that public issue, often, shameless testimonies to their own heroic efforts on our behalf. Meantime, national politicians and media label staged campaign events as "town meetings."

Both practices are fakery.

As a teacher of national politics at the University of Vermont, I now find the great majority of references to town meeting not in the democracy section of textbooks but in chapters on the media.

Indeed, it has come to this: After decades of stripping town meeting of its ability to make important decisions, politicians are now absconding with its very name.

In doing so they are demeaning America's oldest, proudest and most fundamentally democratic institution.