Town hall meetings are older than the United States government and they have had a rebirth in Kingfisher County.

State statute provides that towns with populations less than 2,000 must elect officers at town meetings unless traditional elections conducted through the county election board are authorized by town statute.

Cashion and Loyal had town hall meetings on Tuesday at which town officials were elected for the coming four years.

Loyal re-elected three incumbent officers, all unopposed: John Schlegel, mayor; Jim Savage, trustee, and Dorothy Glazier, treasurer. Other officers attended the meeting but they were not up for election this year.

They included Town Clerk Pamela Schlegel, Emergency Management Director Amber Russell and Trustee Floyd “Junior” Glazier.

Loyal’s town meeting was devoted to electing officers. It’s regular monthly meeting will be held April

11.

However, it was voted to pay a monthly stipend to Fire Chief Richard Meyer.

The board also named Savage to the position of flood plain liaison, which provides a $50 a month stipend.

Schlegel said improvements completed in Loyal during the past year included cleaning up several dilapidated properties, installing a new generator at the water well and purchasing a computerized hand-held meter reading device that makes the monthly job of reading meters more efficient and less grubby. Mrs. Schlegel no longer has to dig out the dirt around water meters before opening them up to get the readings on water usage.

Only incumbent officials attended the Loyal meeting.

At Cashion, residents turned out in large numbers and re-elected Trustees Brad Stone, Position 1, and Greg Morrissey, Position 4, and elected Dud Robertson, long-time educator and line coach for the Cashion High School Wildcat football team, to fill the vacant Position 3.

Asked following the meeting about his reason for standing for election to the town board, Robertson replied:

“I have been a resident here for a long time (31 years as a teacher and coach), and I thought it would be a good opportunity to give back to my community.” Mayor Morrissey presided during the meeting, which served as the regular April meeting of the board of trustees.

Robertson will join the board at the May meeting.

An extensive agenda was handled including approving an application for a $99,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) application for improvements to the waste water system (building a new main – the first phase to build a new system in preparation for expected growth), authorizing the mayor to sign grant documents, discussion regarding town contracts with property associations, setting the date for a town-wide cleanup effort (June

8) and a town-wide garage sale (June 1).

Morrissey said a rezoning matter needed discussion and would be scheduled for the May board meeting. However, he indicated he agreed with a remark from the audience that no peacocks should be allowed inside town limits.

Cashion and Loyal, which held elections to fill government positions for years, have since elected to adopt the town hall meeting procedure, taking advantage of legislation allowing towns to use town halls for election purposes rather than going through the more expensive process of holding elections through county election office.

At town hall meetings candidates for offices can be nominated from the floor and then elected by residents attending the meeting.

Town hall meetings had their origin in colonial America in the 17th century.

At colonial town hall meetings, business issues and binding decisions could be decided by vote of the attendees. That is no longer the case.

In Oklahoma, they serve primarily to elect town officials who are authorized to transact towns’ business.

Politicians have co-opted the concept as a means of meeting with constituents to discuss topics of interest.

Town halls do not have to be held in town halls. They can be held in a wide range of venues.

In fact, the Loyal meeting was held in the Loyal Lions Club Building and the Cashion meeting was held in the Cashion Civic Center.

National politicians have used town halls to televise campaign appearances and town halls have become a common way for national politicians to connect or reconnect with their constituents during recesses when they are in their districts away from Washington.