It seems that residents should be able to attend Town Meeting and vote without getting ridiculed by the local newspaper’s columnist. (Edgar Allen Beem’s “The rise of the Angry White Guy”.)

I, too, was at the Yarmouth Town Meeting, voting in opposition to many of the warrants and I’m happy to explain why. Apparently it’s important for people to know a voter’s motivation so that one doesn’t read in the local paper that they are “not motivated by reason.”

In particular, my vote against many items in the Yarmouth school budget stems from my disagreement with all-day kindergarten. Although I was under the impression that all-day kindergarten was going to be a separate warrant item at the Town Meeting, this apparently was not the case and kindergarten funding was included with other warrants. Although I would like Yarmouth children to receive the same level of educational services that my children enjoyed, I am not going to vote in favor of a school budget that requires an increase in the already high Yarmouth tax rate to provide something I would not have wanted for my own children.

I can only assume that other voters at the Town Meeting do not “firmly believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong,” but most likely have well-thought-out reasons for their view. Really, does Mr. Beem propose that voters refrain from voting at the Town Meeting if they have unpopular views?

Elizabeth Kibler
Yarmouth


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