By Jodi Wolfe
Staff Writer

A small group attended a very short public hearing on a petitioned warrant article asking Pembroke to approve official ballot voting.

The petition was signed by 32 registered voters, including Glorie LaFond, who presented a similar petition last year.v Official ballot voting, also known as SB2 for the New Hampshire Senate Bill that introduced the method of annual voting, was voted down last year on both the town and school district warrants. The Tuesday, Feb. 8, public hearing attracted less than a dozen people.

There was some confusion on the time of the hearing that took place at 6 p.m. before a Pembroke School Board meeting at 6:30 p.m. “There were about five people who showed up and exactly what’s wrong with SB 2,” said Gerry Fleury, a Pembroke school board member, who spoke as a resident during the public hearing.

There were more town and school officials than members of the public, said Selectman Bill Boudreau.

“No one spoke in favor of it,” he said.v Fleury said the public hearing attendance indicates the attendance of deliberative sessions.

With no one attending deliberative sessions, rumors could fly at the last minute, he said.

“I think that our form of government has the opportunity for people to come up and ask questions (unlike at the polls),” he said.

LaFond, who chose not to speak at the public hearing, said switching to SB2 would give more people an opportunity to vote.

“It allows the people to vote instead of just a small amount of people deciding the future of the town,” she said. “With the SB2, all the registered voters can vote.

“It’s hard to sit through the annual meetings,” she said.

Some of the younger voters she has talked to agreed with her that they prefer to vote on everything at once, she said.

“To me that is the democratic way,” she said.

On Election Day last year, there was 17.5 percent voter turnout with 705 ballots cast out of 4,025 registered voters, said Town Clerk Jim Goff.v Goff estimates that 200 people attended the annual Town Meeting last year. Boudreau estimated 450 to 550 people attend on average.

Pembroke Selectman Larry Young Sr., who was not at the Feb. 8 public hearing, said he is not personally in favor of changing to SB2.

“It gives too much power to too little people,” he said. “Just four or five people can show up and dictate an awful lot of money.”

School district clerk Cynthia Menard said that as a nurse who works weekends, she looks for forward to the annual meetings and arranges her work schedule so she can attend them.

“I enjoy participating in that whole process,” she said. “I definitely love the Town Meeting and School District Meeting process.”

The current system doesn’t have enough opportunity for voters to attend meetings and it is too limited, said Ruth Martin, a resident who signed the petition.

“All my life I’ve had to work on Saturdays,” said Martin, who was a letter carrier in Concord for 33 years. “That’s when Town Meetings are held.”v If she wanted to attend, she would have to ask for the days off in advance.

“That’s why I would like SB2,” she said.