Interviews

Interview with East Bridgewater Town Official 

By: Will Cifrino, 11

10/25/24

(W)Hello Mrs. Spagone, I am conducting this interview today for my Foundations of Journalism class, the goal of this interview is to inform readers, especially students on how this town works, what they can do to get more involved, and how much impact local government has. So let us get started. 

(W)Q: Can you elaborate on how the open town meetings work what you and everyone who attends does along with when they meet, and how to attend examples of results of the town meetings?

(S)A: Sure, sure. So we typically have two meetings, two town meetings a year, and they're conducted over at the high school auditorium. What we conduct in at the meetings is that we'll put together a warrant, as it's called, in on the warrant. Are different articles that are presented to the community, and to the voters in the community. These are submitted from departments as well as committees that are formed here in town. So, for instance, you could get an article that comes from DPW, which might be a road-related article, you know, fixing the roads or something along those lines. And you can get an article from the planning board where they want to change the zoning from like residential to commercial. Most of the articles are money-related because the town obviously the money that we collect in different types of taxes in the community is used to fund these types of articles. There are some, like I just said, that are that are more leaning towards, changing rules, regulations, and zoning and things of that nature. So what ends up happening is we've got a certain amount of time that put the articles together, they go into what they call the warrant, and the warrant is then presented by the town moderator and it's voted on by the general public, the voters in the town to decide whether they want to or they don't want to pass these these articles.

(W)Q: Okay, so I have a follow-up question, would the warrants be approved or would the articles be improved?

(S)A: So the articles make up the warrant. So we put together different articles from different departments as I said, and then the warrant is put in front of the general body that shows up for that, that day. 

(W)Yeah. So articles within the warrant can be approved, and some can be rejected. 

(S)Absolutely. Get to the general public what they want to do. 100%.

(W)Q: You've answered this question, which was when and where the East Bridgewater town East Bridgewater whole town elections.

(S)Half of the town meetings are twice a year. There's one annual meet election, though, per year. That's always in late April or early June. Sometimes right around there. I think it's June. I think we've switched it, so that's that's one of the years. That's when we elect our officials.

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