Camden residents have been feeling the brunt of recent changes to our governing process, to wit the change to the town’s charter that we voted in in the wake of Covid, in June 2022.

Earlier, in 2021, the town had approved, by a non-binding referendum (made binding by the June 2022 vote) to move the budget voting, which had been in person, to secret ballot on the town’s June election days.

There were other changes to our governance over the last 10 years that have impacted the ways citizens’ voices have been heard. Here are some of the changes we’ve seen:

Budget committee: This was a large group (20-22), that were elected. Currently members of the budget are selected by the Select Board, based on folks who have submitted a committee member application. There does not seem to be a way for citizens to vet who sits on this committee. Nor does there seem to be a system of regular turnover of Budget Committee members.

Public meetings for budget review: As part of the charter change, there was an attempt to call ‘public hearings’ for the budget review by the citizens. In reality, these are extensions of budget meetings, and don’t seem to function like free-flowing discussions by the general citizenry to give the Budget Committee, Select Board, and any town staff, the spending priorities that the citizens would like for a given year.

Other committees disbanded. In the wake of covid, the following committees were eliminated: CEDAC (Community Economic and Community Development), Parks and Recreation (oversaw the Ragged Mt. Recreation area and other PR activities), Personnel, and Energy. There have been no significant, regular attempts to get citizen input on these important topics in any fashion that is equitable or demonstrable.

We’ve had several years of community dissatisfaction with the functioning of our town. Going forward, we’d do well to ask those running for Select Board how they feel about the following, and to ask those continuing on the Select Board, to take the following steps to allow citizens more and regular input.

Reinstate ALL the disbanded committees;

Develop an advisory committee for the next two years with the sole function of reviewing town spending and finances with a mind to improved nearby town collaboration to reduce spending;

Commencing yearly public budget forums that are held before budget deliberations are started (FEBRUARY), and again after the budget committee meetings are done, before the town warrant is set;

Revert to a system where Budget Committee members are elected on an annual basis, so that citizens can discern the spending proclivities of those who sit on the committee;

Enforce turnover on the Budget Committee on a regular (annual or biannual) basis;

Hold an open town forum soon after new select board members are elected (late JUNE) during which citizens can provide input on town priorities for the following year;

All town committees start their work years with work plans, which are developed by consensus and reviewed in public at Select Board meetings (Rockport does this).

System change is needed for Camden citizens to have more and better input. The current system simply is not working.

Molly Mulhern lives in Camden