On Monday morning, an email arrived from Town Moderator Mike Widmer, outlining his plans for the special Town Meeting Monday night.
The email opened with “Per my custom, I want to provide an overview of how we will proceed tonight.” It’s the last time he will send such an email, closing out a tenure as Town Moderator that began in 2008.
Widmer has been a fixture in Belmont politics since 1981, when he and his wife, Jeanne, first won seats as Town Meeting members. She later held a seat on the School Committee, and he was appointed to the Warrant Committee, a seat he held for 15 years. In 2008, longtime moderator Henry Hall stepped down, and Widmer saw a chance to stay involved.
“I thought about running for moderator because I wanted to stay involved,” he said. “Town Meeting can be difficult, but I have a great respect for it as a body and as our legislative body. And I wanted to stay involved. And I thought I could do it well.”
He’s won reelection every year since 2008 and only once faced opposition. His opponent in 2024, Mike Crowley, now faces Mark Paolillo to replace Widmer in the April election.
Rewinding 17 years to when he first held office, Widmer recalls thinking Town Meeting was unfocused, with people straying off-topic, talking for too long, and in some instances, the same people were speaking several times during a debate.
Widmer recalled the Town Meeting body was homogeneous, not reflective of the growing diversity within Belmont.
“In all of those respects, I thought about trying to modernize it, to make it run more smoothly, more focused, more people participating, [and provide] better information in advance to Town Meeting members,” he said.
He began by shortening each member’s allotted time to speak, from 10 minutes to 5, and finally to 3 minutes each. He established a task force on Town Meeting, focused on studying ways to improve communications and smooth out the meeting process.
In 2012, the town adopted electronic voting, further speeding the pace of Town Meeting, he said.
But most critical, in his mind, has been the improved communications. Widmer credits Town Clerk Ellen O’Brien Cushman with being key to conveying clear and timely information. For example, there are tutorials for new members, and careful curation of documents members need to know and understand the issues.
“All those things I’ve tried to do make it easier for them to understand how Town Meeting works and what their responsibilities are, give them information. Try to be as helpful as possible. Ellen Cushman, she and I are partners in that. She has the same goal, so all of this takes teamwork,” Widmer said.
So, while the meetings can still be long, better-informed members make for a more focused, meaningful discussion.
For anyone unclear, being Moderator is more than choosing who speaks next, and who gets appointed to one of the various committees. Widmer said it can take hours of preparation to know what issues are coming up and what topics are outside the scope of the article in question. Widmer even goes over planned slide presentations to ensure they are organized and understandable.
“My mantra has always been ‘be fair.’ If there’s one thing that I’ve tried to do is be fair,” he said. “So I try to come out with what I think is fair in terms of scope, not being a total hard bar, but not opening it up to where it will be endless.”
His advice for his successor is to be prepared. It’s a complicated, delicate task to make sure the town’s business gets done and done well. Whoever wins on April 1 will undoubtedly face some growing pains, he said.
“If there’s one thing that is hard to convey, but is critical, is the enormous complexity of organizing a Town Meeting with all the dimensions, planning the communications, scope, slides, presentations that have changed at the last minute,” Widmer said.
With the gavel passed on, Widmer, now 86, will focus on his family- he has 13 grandchildren. He will do some writing, sit on several nonprofit boards, and spend time at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. He’s an avid long-distance swimmer, having twice swum the Alcatraz Challenge, and he stays fit in New Hampshire or at Walden Pond in Lincoln.
He is also open to a lower-key role in Belmont government. He didn’t run for Town Meeting, choosing to make a clean break.
“I’ve loved being the moderator, it’s been great,” he said. “It pulled together some of my skills and clearly, it’s in my interests.”