Commentary by Frank Schroth

Did this photo prompt the following remark?

“First and foremost it has been brought to my attention by some town meeting members that they were concerned and I can appreciate the concern that as we had a standing vote. . . other members stood up at the front of the hall  to take pictures of who was standing. I don’t know that there is any law that is being broken but I can tell you the decorum or the inference is not something I think that all of us share and want to participate in.”        — Town Moderator Brian Walsh, Day 3 of Town Meeting

We respect the Town Moderator’s comment and the complaint or complaints that spawned it;  but here is an alternate point of view on the issue.

I am a Town Meeting member representing Precinct 2 and the editor of this web site. I wear multiple hats. As many of us do in our town, wearing two hats is not an unusual fashion statement.

The photograph was published because it was newsworthy. A group of town meeting members requested a standing vote on the issue of an appropriation for the second phase of Milton’s Master Plan. The plan is a community-driven road map for the future of the town and stipulated by MGL Chapter 41, Section 81D. That these members, who opposed the appropriation, felt so strongly that despite the clear result of a voice vote, they would request a standing vote, mattered. They had a right to request a standing vote, that is, literally to stand and be counted. I have a right to take a photo, which is in the public interest, documenting that.

As a town meeting member, my journalist’s hat might have been interpreted as overstepping an unwritten rule of etiquette. But I maintain that taking and publishing the photograph was not disrespectful to Town Meeting. What is the objection to anyone snapping a photo of elected officials in a public forum taking a vote, even when that photo was created by another town meeting member?

Quite the contrary, the complaint implies that the public, the press, and town meeting members should keep their lens caps on and the camera phones in their pockets, even though town meeting is our town’s primary legislative session, open to the public and televised.

I appreciate that a sense of decorum is to be observed, but should we stifle free speech and the public’s right to know because we do not want to offend elected officials who take umbrage at being photographed doing their duty?