Town Edition
Franklin County
Leverett, Massachusetts
Photo: John Phelan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The phone company decided Leverett was not worth the wire, so the town wired itself. In 2012 Town Meeting voted 306 to 33 to borrow 3.6 million dollars for a fiber-optic network, and that June residents went to the ballot box and agreed, 426 to 90, to raise their own property taxes to pay the loan back. The fiber strung along these roads does not belong to a corporation. It belongs to the town, which means it belongs to you. That is what an open Town Meeting can do: about 1,865 people, in one of the oldest forms of self-government in the country, deciding their own town’s future in a room any registered voter can walk into. This guide shows you how to get into the room.
Leverett at a Glance
Sources: Massachusetts DESE, district profile · US Census Bureau (data.census.gov) · Town of Leverett.
- County: Franklin. Leverett is a forested hilltown of about 23 square miles east of the Connecticut River, set off from Sunderland in 1774, with Rattlesnake Gutter and the slopes of Mount Toby on its edges.
- Government: open Town Meeting, with an elected three-member Select Board and an appointed Town Administrator, Marjorie McGinnis, who also manages the town-owned Municipal Light Plant.
- Schools: Leverett Elementary, about 135 students in PreK through grade 6, with grades 7 to 12 attending the Amherst-Pelham Regional schools.
How Leverett’s Government Works
Leverett runs on an open Town Meeting, which means there are no elected Town Meeting members at all: every registered voter in Leverett is a member, and any of them can walk in, speak, and vote on the budget. Leverett takes this even further than most towns, electing its own town officers from the floor of Town Meeting rather than at a separate ballot election. Voters choose a three-member Select Board to set policy between meetings and a School Committee that oversees the elementary school. The Select Board hires a professional Town Administrator to run the town day to day. So the money is voted by whoever shows up, the direction is set by the Select Board, and the daily work is carried out by the Town Administrator.
Town Meeting
The legislative body, and it is not a committee. Every registered voter in Leverett is a member. Town Meeting adopts the annual budget, passes town bylaws, approves major spending, and even elects the town’s officers. This is direct democracy in its literal sense.
Select Board
3 members elected town-wide. They set policy, sign the warrants that decide what reaches Town Meeting, appoint residents to many town boards, and hire and supervise the Town Administrator.
Town Administrator
The appointed chief administrator, who in Leverett also manages the town-owned Municipal Light Plant. Runs the departments, builds the budget, and answers to the Select Board. Hired under contract, not elected.
School Committee
5 members, elected town-wide, who oversee Leverett Elementary. They set school policy, approve the school budget, and work with the superintendent shared across the school union.
- Residents elect the 3 members of the Select Board and the 5 members of the School Committee.
- The Select Board hires the Town Administrator and decides what goes on the Town Meeting warrant.
- Town Meeting votes the budget and the bylaws, and every registered voter present can vote.
- You take part: pre-register at 16. A pre-registrant is on the list but is not allowed to vote yet. Once you turn 18 that designation comes off on its own and you are a registered voter in Leverett, which makes you a member of Town Meeting with a vote on the floor. If you never pre-registered, register with the Town Clerk, and do it well ahead: the rolls close at 5 p.m. on the tenth day before any election or Town Meeting.
Civic Calendar
- Select Board: meets biweekly on Tuesday evenings at 7:00 PM at Leverett Town Hall, 9 Montague Road, and by remote link. The agenda is posted in advance, so check the town calendar before you go.
- Town Meeting: the Annual Town Meeting is held in the spring, where the town votes its budget and elects its officers, and a Special Town Meeting can be called when business cannot wait.
- Town elections: Leverett elects its town officers from the floor of Town Meeting. Ballot questions, such as a debt exclusion for a big project, go to a separate town ballot.
- State and federal elections: even-numbered years. The clerk posts the current state election date, and the General Court lists who holds Leverett’s seat in the state House of Representatives.
Explore the Leverett Edition
- Town Administrator’s OfficeThe town’s chief administrator
- Select BoardYour three board members
- School CommitteeSuperintendent & committee
- Town DepartmentsWho does what at Town Hall
- Boards & CommissionsWhere residents serve
- LegislatorsYour voice in Boston & D.C.
- Leverett History1774, the mills, and the Peace Pagoda
- DemographicsWho lives in Leverett
- Non-ProfitsCommunity organizations
- Student DataLeverett schools by the numbers
Your County Officials
Two of the people with the most direct power over your life are elected, and neither one sits on Beacon Hill. The district attorney decides who gets charged with a crime, and what they get charged with. The sheriff runs the county jail. The sheriff is elected by the voters of Franklin County. The district attorney is elected by the voters of a prosecution district, and Massachusetts draws eleven of those across its fourteen counties, so a district attorney’s territory does not always follow a county line. Both appear on your ballot in Leverett. Now you know what to look for.
Massachusetts elects fourteen sheriffs, one for each county, and eleven district attorneys, one for each prosecution district. The job is the same everywhere: the charging decisions, the jail. Look up any town in the state and see who holds these two offices there.
Your First Civic Action in Leverett
You do not have to wait until you can vote to be heard in your own town. Here is how to take a real concern to the people who decide.
- Pick the right body. Town policy, roads, and police or fire go to the Select Board. Schools go to the School Committee. The budget and bylaws are voted by Town Meeting.
- Find the meeting. The Select Board meets biweekly on Tuesday evenings at Leverett Town Hall, 9 Montague Road, and the agenda is posted in advance.
- Know your members. All three Select Board members are elected town-wide, so every one of them answers to you.
- Speak. Meetings are open to the public and residents may address the board. Check the agenda for how to sign up.
- Or skip the trip. Report a pothole, a washed-out road, or a downed line to the Highway Department, which is the department that owns the repair.
- Town Hall: 9 Montague Road, PO Box 300, Leverett, MA 01054. Town Administrator’s office (413) 548-9699.
- Town Clerk & agendas: Lisa Stratford, (413) 548-9150, with meeting agendas and minutes posted at leverett.ma.us.
- Public schools: Leverett Elementary, (413) 548-9144, leverettschool.org.
Local government works best when residents show up. Find your Select Board, speak at a meeting on the town’s published calendar, or simply register to vote and take your seat at Town Meeting.