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WEBVTT
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.600
Hi. I'm Jeff Alderson. I'm the Town Moderator in the Town of Natick, and I'm going to explain
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how Town Meeting works through two real votes that happened right here in Natick.
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In Massachusetts, many towns have what's called Town Meeting.
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It's like a student council for the whole town.
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Elected members vote on big things, like money, rules, and projects.
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Any resident in the town can come and speak at Town Meeting, but only elected members can vote.
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My job, the moderator, that's me in Natick, is to make sure that things are fair,
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that everyone gets a turn to speak, and I'm the one that gets to call out
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what the actual vote count was, how many people were for or against a motion.
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You don't take sides as a moderator. You're there to act like a referee and make sure that everyone has time to speak their mind about the topic at hand.
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Two things happened in Natick recently. One, we debated whether or not the town should
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phase out the use of gas leaf blowers.
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And the second was whether or not we shouldn't build any more artificial turf fields on school grounds.
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Both of these are real topics that people care a lot about.
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So for that first question, there was a group in town called EcoNatick that wanted to phase out gas leaf blowers. Why?
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Well, they're loud. They pollute the air. They might be able to make people sick.
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People wanted to switch to electric blowers, or just use a rake.
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Now, some people agreed with that. It was better for our health and the planet.
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And then some people disagreed. Electric blowers aren't strong enough yet for the big jobs,
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and the new equipment and that new technology, it costs a lot of money.
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Both sides made really good points. And at Town Meeting, everyone listened to what they had to say.
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But when it came time to vote, it was 79 yes, 27 no, and one abstain.
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An abstain is just basically saying that that person didn't really want to vote on that issue.
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The yes vote in this case meant that this was going to be sent to a study committee to learn about the topic more.
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No ban on gas leaf blowers just yet, just more studying.
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Now let's talk about the second question.
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Some residents in town asked for a three-year pause on building new turf fields. In town, we call that a moratorium.
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They really didn't want to have new plastic turf fields because they were worried about player health and students and the environment.
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While other people said that they needed more fields for kids to play on, and they didn't really care what type of turf or grass it was.
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One side said that microplastics, little bits of plastics and forever chemicals in the turf field, could be dangerous.
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The fields get really hot too. The other side on the issue said that turf fields can be used way more than grass fields.
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That gives students more time to play. And we don't have enough fields today for all the kids who do want to play in their own sports.
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The outcome of this vote was 74 yes, 28 no, and three abstain.
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In this case, the yes vote meant that the town agreed to the three-year pause.
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No new artificial turf fields are going to be built in Natick for three years while the town studies the issue.
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Existing fields that already were there and may have already been made out of turf, they're fine. They can be maintained and they will stay.
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So, what do we learn from these two examples?
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Anyone can speak up.
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You don't have to be a leader or elected.
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If you care about something, you can share your idea and discuss it.
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Debating also helps. Hearing different sides of an issue makes us think harder and make better choices.
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And every vote counts. Each person that's elected to Town Meeting gets one vote and every vote matters.
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And that's democracy.