By Carol Britton Meyer

The results of a citizen-driven survey intended to gather constructive feedback from Hull residents following the recent four-session, often divisive, town meeting are in. A total of 103 citizens participated.

The goal was “to better understand what residents felt worked well, where communication or process could improve, and how we can encourage greater transparency, engagement, and public participation moving forward,” Hillary Taverna wrote in the introduction to the survey, which she organized.

Taverna is the daughter of select board member Jerry Taverna, and while he attended the “debrief” meeting following the close of the survey on May 20, “this was my own initiative,” she said.

Since then, several citizen volunteers have joined together with Taverna to begin the conversation about ways to improve the 2027 town meeting.

Taverna’s initial takeaways from the survey results, which she shared with The Hull Times, are that residents:

• “Care about the town and want to make changes … and to see it improve over time” and

• Desire better information about town meeting throughout the year as well as changes to the process and length.

Click here for the full compilation of results from the survey.

That document has both quantitative and qualitative results from the 103 responses. According to the compilation, “some respondents felt citizens were not informed enough about articles or the budget going into ATM” and “by far, the most common complaint this year was disrespect and a lack of decorum across the board.”

“Residents were clearly frustrated with what they perceived to be unfair moderation and disrespect from all sides,” Taverna said. “However, we drew the conclusion that if we made strategic improvements in key areas – like more communication and education about warrant articles and the budget and perhaps reverted to addressing the articles in order – the moderator’s job may become much easier.

“As a result, the issues of unfair moderation and disrespect might be greatly reduced or may disappear entirely,” she added. “This was a useful revelation that may help us better focus our energies on what we feel we can truly change by next year.”

Other takeaways include that the survey process was not difficult and that overall, the in-person debrief meeting of 30-plus residents was “a great example of collaboration prevailing over divisiveness, as we quickly learned that we all have more in common than not.”

“Residents certainly wanted to vent, but the more we discussed it, the more we focused on more systemic issues as opposed to issues with specific town officials” – for example, the point that improving resident education and the length of town meeting could make the moderator’s job easier, Taverna said.

The survey included questions about town meeting engagement, participation in past town meetings and how citizens felt prior to and during town meeting with regard to feeling informed, among others.

The survey was posted on the Today in Hull and Hull Happenings 2.0 Facebook groups to encourage as many citizens to participate as possible, and the details were also published in the Times.

Taverna then created an email list from the names of those who took the time to fill out the survey to provide follow-up information and an opportunity to join working groups, including one focused on resident education/information.

To reach Taverna for more information or to join the effort, use the QR code included here.

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