Danvers review committee proposes smaller town meeting, clearer manager reporting and other updates

The Town of Danvers Finance Committee hosted the town-moderator-appointed Town Meeting/Town Manager Acts Review Committee to present a set of redlined changes intended to modernize and clarify two long-standing local acts.

Sally Calhoun, chair of the review committee, told the finance committee the panel met 19 times from July 2024 to May 2025 and prepared a written report dated May 13, 2025, following the town meeting vote that created the committee on May 20, 2024. “We recommend changing town meeting from 18 members per precinct to 15 members per precinct,” Calhoun said, citing repeated contests in which precincts lacked enough candidates and a May 6, 2025 election in which six of eight precincts did not have enough people running to fill their allotted slots.

The proposal would reduce the body from the current total reported by the committee (149 members) to a new configuration yielding 120 elected precinct members plus the five at-large select board members for a total of 125 voting town meeting members. Calhoun framed the change as pragmatic: smaller membership, the committee argued, may…