Script For Documentary on Town Meeting Campaigns By Ben Grosscup [Introduction] Narration1: Once a year in towns all over Vermont, people gather at town meeting to discuss and make decisions in a remarkably democratic forum. On town meeting day, citizens in each town debate and vote on issues that affect their community. Vermont still has a vibrant political culture around its annual town meetings, unparalleled anywhere else in the United States. The culture, purview, and rules of town meeting, however, have changed considerably over time. The purview of town meeting is usually limited to electing the town select board and other city officials, allocating town funds to certain town projects and charities, debating certain aspects of zoning law, and debating funding issues about education and other towns expenses. Town meeting today, though significant, is peripheral to political life in Vermont. [History of Town Meeting from American Revolution Through 1980s] Town Meeting has deep roots dating back to the American Revolution. Historian and Author, Murray Bookchin called these town meetings "the Machinery of the revolution," because much of the resistance against British Rule was organized through town government. In 18th century New England, without a fully developed centralized state, people's everyday lives were much more integrated with the political organization of the town meeting than they are today. Centralized state control developed first with the British Empire extending military control over the settler towns- what it considered to be its colonies. Later, federalist forces within the American Colonies, who opposed the British, were to consolidate power to an even greater extent than any of their British predecessors. Professor of History at the University of Vermont, and scholar of Vermont town meeting, Jay Moore: (JM1-purview of early town meeting) The town meeting system was brought by the Puritan people who came here form England. It was the basic unit of government for people in early New England. Even bigger places like Boston were run by town meeting processes up through and beyond the American Revolution. The town meetings just like town meetings today: the main topics on their agenda would be matters pertaining to the local town: Attracting a Minister in the Earlier Days