In a move that’s about a generation overdue, the town of Gray is reconsidering its use of the annual town meeting.

Gray, not unlike other towns in the Lakes Region with a board of selectmen or town council, has seen a severe lack of participation in recent years at the fabled town meeting. In fact, on May 2, only 75 people in Gray showed up to vote on next fiscal year’s budget.

In response, and in an effort to get better input on upcoming budgets from a wider segment of the community, the Gray Town Council decided earlier this week to work with the town’s legal firm to draft an amendment to the town charter that would abolish the annual town meeting.

As it stands now, Gray holds the yearly meeting to allow residents to discuss and vote on the proposed budget, as drafted by the town manager, town councilors and school committee members. It then holds a referendum on the budget in June. So, tossing out the town meeting means nothing will change concerning the rights of individual voters. Gray voters can still give input during budget preparations as the local boards hash out the budget line by line in late winter and early spring. And then they have a ballot vote in June, a practice that was established just a couple years ago.

Of course, many will reflexively think there’s something sinister about deep-sixing the annual town meeting. Some will lament the old days that Norman Rockwell depicted in fine detail. But those days are over. Today, people don’t want to think about their government any more than they have to. They go to work, come home exhausted, and want to relax on the weekend, not go listen to a bunch of politicians and town employees talk about a boring budget on a nice sunny day in the spring.

While people are overworked, I suspect the real reason people don’t go to town meeting is because they tend to trust their local representatives on the town council and school board. Most of the representatives are longtime, well-known residents, members of local churches, parents of school-aged kids or involved in community groups. Many voters know at least one of the members of a local board personally. Because of this trust, people are less likely to think they’re being railroaded. But, in the event that spending gets out of hand, there will always be means of recourse, namely speaking out while the budget is being crafted or voting “nay” in June, which would force budgeteers to go back to the drawing board.

More than 7,500 people live in Gray. One percent showed up at May 2’s annual town meeting. If that’s not a sign that the tradition of town meeting is dead, what is?

It’d be interesting to do a study or poll asking why people don’t attend town meeting. But no matter the answer, it’s clear the latest generation of Mainers are just not that into annual town meeting. So, viva la ballot, hopefully in Gray and everywhere else where annual town meetings are dying. We will always have our Rockwell posters, but what we need in budget season is allowing the entire town to vote on a budget.

Plus, in my experience having covered most of the annual town meetings in the Lakes Region, half the folks who attend are usually attached to some organization that receives money from the town budget, be they firefighters, librarians, teachers, or public works employees. It never settled well with me that these people, even though they are residents of the town, were able to force through multi-million dollar budgets with no one to stand in their way. It certainly is a good idea to take the power out of these special interests’ hands and put it back into the taxpayers’ hands. Allowing everyone to vote via a June ballot will ensure this happens.

John Balentine, of Windham, is a former editor of the Lakes Region Weekly.