Parker Potter is a former archaeologist and historian, and a retired lawyer. He is currently a semi-professional dogwalker who lives and works in Contoocook.

A funny thing happened on my way to this My Turn column. Let me explain.

Back in December when the Hopkinton property tax bills came out, a somewhat snarky post popped up in my Facebook feed, and a thread of comments ensued. One, in particular, caught my eye. In it, the writer, who was presumably miffed by the increase in their taxes, pinned the blame on people “who love to raise taxes” and then accused the “tax lovers” of engaging in bullying by referring to those who are opposed to higher property taxes as being antagonistic toward the schools.

The idea of framing the conversation about property taxes and school funding as a battle between tax lovers and school haters really got under my skin, to the point that I got several hundred words into a My Turn in which I decried the impulse to reduce a serious and seriously complex issue to the level of name-calling and sloganeering.

The point of my half-written My Turn was to express my view that we need less finger-pointing and more good-faith conversation, real give and take, starting from a patch of common ground. The common ground I had in mind was an acknowledgment that virtually nobody likes higher taxes and we all want good schools.

As I said, I got several hundred words into my column and had the idea of publishing it right before town meeting season. But something held me back. Perhaps it was concern over a schoolmarmish finger-wagging tone casting a dark shadow over the sunny-side-of-the-street glow that infuses most of my My Turn columns. As it turns out, my reticence was completely justified by the Hopkinton School District meeting that took place on March 11.

On the day of that meeting, I left my customary canine companions high and dry by going to the meeting rather than walking them. At the meeting, I was joined in the high school gym by approximately 250 fellow Hopkintonians. The proposed school budget was a good bit higher than last year's, so I was worried about how the meeting might play out.

I had been alerted to the school budget issue by the family of one of the dogs I walk. When the town’s budget committee asked the school board to trim its proposed budget, it did so by cutting two positions, one classroom teacher and one subject-matter interventionist. At the next meeting of the budget committee, when it considered the school board’s proposed cuts, a number of parents expressed their concerns, and the budget committee reinstated funding for the teacher and the interventionist. That left the school board’s original proposed budget as the one to be voted on at the school district meeting.

The meeting got off to a tasty start with tables full of coffee and donuts generously donated by the civic-minded owners of the local Dunkin’ franchise. With happy bellies, the voters got to work.

In the end, after two amendments were voted down, the proposed budget was approved, but here I am less concerned with the result than I am with how it came about.

The presentations by members of the school board were concise and cogent. When voters asked questions, members of the school board answered them clearly and followed up to make sure that those who asked questions were satisfied with the answers they received.

Between one and two dozen voters spoke, on both sides of the proposed budget, and while they were speaking on one of the Granite State’s hottest of hot-button issues, every single speaker was both thoughtful and respectful of those who held different opinions. There was easily as much listening going on as there was speaking. There was no rancor, just well-articulated deliberation on one of the most important and most contentious issues our town, or any New Hampshire town, ever has to face.

Unlike so much of what passes for civic conversation these days, which often amounts to little more than an effort to pin an unsavory label on an opponent, virtually everything my neighbors said at last week’s meeting was a conversation starter, not something intended to be a last word and a conversation killer.

In other words, the half-drafted My Turn that I never finished or submitted was entirely unnecessary; at least in my town, I would have been preaching to the choir. I am happy to live in my town, and my state, for any number of reasons, and on the day of the Hopkinton School District meeting, I was not just happy, I was proud.

I am not so naive as to believe that having one town-wide meeting without fireworks means that we are anywhere close to being out of the woods when it comes to figuring out how to fund our schools in an affordable way, and as one speaker pointed out, there is even a conversation to be had regarding whether 250 voters in a high school gym on a Saturday morning should be making decisions that affect several thousand taxpayers. But based on what I saw on at the meeting I am writing about, I am more than cautiously optimistic that we can have meaningful constructive conversations about these issues rather than unproductive wars of words.

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