Not too long ago, the annual town meeting was where Farmington residents learned about the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year and voted on it — the referendum is a relatively new addition to the process.
But in the past few years, the Farmington town meeting has struggled even to reach a quorum, some with less than a few hundred residents in attendance.
Last year, however, a pro-budget group used the forum to restore $750,000 the Town Council had cut from the proposed budget after it failed at a first referendum, raising complaints that a group of 324 voters had overturned the vote of the entire town.
"We've had a big problem in recent years, in that we didn't even meet the quorum," said Town Council Chairman Jeff Hogan recently. "We get those that are very much in favor of the budget and those that are very much against it. We don’t have the middle ground."
So, will you attend? Are you in the middle?
