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Publication Date: December 7th, 2025
Image remixed from The Economist.
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In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, small American towns produced ships, ironworks, schools, and genuine prosperity with almost no bureaucracy. From the 1629 Cambridge Agreement, which shifted the Massachusetts Bay Company’s authority into the hands of the colonists, to the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution’s fixed April meetings, early New England governance relied on one insight: citizens thrive when public business happens on a predictable schedule and the government does not waste their time. These communities built impressive output because civic order reduced friction. People worked. Government got out of the way.
Hudson once understood this. Before electricity and digital calendars, Hudson ran on shared expectations. The noon bell set commercial time. Public meetings occurred when everyone already knew to expect them. Farmers and merchants could plan their week without checking a website. Predictability was not nostalgia. It was civic infrastructure.
The last administration under Tom DePietro and Kamal Johnson undermined this structure. Announcements appeared on private Facebook pages (which were also the hosts of Mob Playbooks, which we covered in-depth here). Key items landed without warning. Symbolic or irrelevant resolutions blindsided the Common Council. Meetings grew emotional because unpredictability replaced process. The government consumed residents’ time rather than protecting it. And all this in spite of the hard and diligent work behind the scenes of the City Clerk team and other City Hall employees who catch balls and change gears behind the scenes.
Every extra hour of meetings costs money and erodes trust. Attorneys bill by the hour, staff waste time, and residents lose evenings with family and productive hours at work. The busiest and most capable citizens are punished because only those with unlimited free time can participate. A tiny, hyperactive minority ends up steering policy. That is not public service. It is civic capture. A government that forces residents to sacrifice hours just to stay informed has inverted its purpose. Citizens pay taxes so the state will save them time, not drain it.
Hudson needs one simple rule: public meetings at 7pm, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, for a maximum of one hour, ideally less. No exceptions. No moving parts. No evening guessing games. Even small variations, a 10am committee here, a 6:30pm hearing there, force residents to recheck calendars endlessly. A civic rhythm must be so clear it can be traded at the farmers’ market or dog park in a single breath, for example:
“All specific Committees and Boards on Tuesdays at 7pm and all city-wide Council and Board meetings Wednesdays at 7pm. See xyz.com for weekly breakdown.”
If a single issue draws extraordinary turnout once per year, the city can plan a longer session and move it to the Fire Station or Hudson Hall. Even then, strict limits elsewhere keep the total under ten hours a month. That is what respect for taxpayers’ time looks like.
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If you like this idea, you will want to follow along as Common Sense suggests 15 Ideas for Hudson in 15 Days. Read our daily updates here. ⏪
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Most months should never exceed eight total hours of public meetings. A small city does not need sprawling committee structures and unbounded hearings. Government exists to deliver results efficiently, not to occupy the lives of its citizens.
A reader commented that the Planning Board or some other committee might need more meeting time… to which we wonder… do they need more expensive meeting time, or simply to prioritize and prepare better?
Below is just one illustrative civic cadence. Its week assignments are examples; the Common Council President and Mayor can adjust them based on operational knowledge and earned wisdom.
A Monthly Civic Cadence for All Boards (Illustrative, Normal Maximum 8 Hours):
Week 1: Planning Board
Week 2: Zoning Board of Appeals
Week 3: Historic Preservation Commission
Week 4: Conservation Advisory Council
(Quarterly): Industrial Development Agency
Week 1: Finance Committee
Week 2: Legal and Intergovernmental Committee
Week 3: Public Works and Buildings Committee
Week 4: Common Council
This replaces morning meetings, scattered subcommittees, and irregular scheduling. A resident with ambition and interest can attend all eight. A resident with limited time can attend one. The point is simple: government should meet citizens where they are and when they are free, not the other way around.
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One unfortunate Covid era hold-over is the optional Zoom dial-in… while virtual participation can help some and increase accessibility, it is also undeniable that it has harmed social cohesion and trust. Clear evening meetings let people plan their lives and plan to attend in person. In-person attendance strengthens accountability. Zoom should be a secondary option for storms, disability, or unavoidable travel (or when mobs are incited against Councilmembers…), but certainly not the default.
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Repair the City’s Digital Sprawl
Hudson juggles Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and other platforms. This confuses residents and wastes staff time. The city should adopt one inexpensive universal platform and create two permanent public meeting rooms with unchanging links, for example cityofhudson.org/meet or Hudsonpublicmeetings.com. One link, saved once, used for years. That is how a government that serves residents behaves.
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If a Planning Board or Zoning Board member only needs to budget one official hour a month plus modest preparation, far more capable people will serve. The current 15–20 hour expectation for unpaid work deters exactly the people Hudson should want in the room: competent, productive, time-constrained residents. A clean and predictable calendar expands the talent pool.
The Hudson Industrial Development Agency (IDA) meets at 09:30 on weekdays. That excludes anyone with a job. An agency that approves or modifies PILOTs and major tax arrangements should never meet when taxpayers cannot attend. It must take a Tuesday evening slot or meet quarterly on a Wednesday evening under the same one-hour cap. Public money demands public access.
A stable public calendar also stabilises internal operations. If a mayor revives weekly or monthly department-head meetings, Monday becomes the natural anchor: Monday internal meetings and coordination. Tuesday committees. Wednesday citywide decisions. (Thursday and Friday No meetings” and just work?)
A government that keeps its own time can finally manage itself. Fewer and shorter Common Council meetings would also allow council members to host every other month meetings in their wards to get real-time feedback on legislation before the council. One month in City Hall. The next month in the wards. A proposal introduced in June is reviewed in July at ward-level meetings. In August the council reconvenes, compares what each ward heard, and votes. Ninety days. No chaos. Better laws.
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Less is More?
A reasonable resident could say… but we need more time! Perhaps. But consider that when City Hall does not spend time on dozens of non-binding virtue signaling resolutions and focusses on key legislative priorities with far reaching impact (Charter Reform?) more will get done by meeting less.
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A well-run city does not demand that residents live at City Hall or hire EAs to stay on top of all the shenanigans. The Mayor, supported by the City Clerk, can take clear responsibility for one monthly email carrying all essential updates: council actions, department notes, upcoming matters. One email. One per month
If a resident cares about a zoning change or a tax proposal in that email, they can attend one one-hour meeting or send one written comment. Ten minutes of reading plus one hour of engagement should be enough for a citizen to influence policy in a city of this size. Those who want to dive deeper can attend all eight monthly meetings and read every document. Even then, they would spend roughly ten hours, not the dozens currently required just to keep up. Follow our 15 Days of 15 Ideas for Hudson here for our fully-fledged suggestion of a monthly city newsletter, coming soon.
The government works for the public. The public does not work for the government. If people want a social club, they can join the Rotary or the Salvation Army, or enjoy one of Hudson’s many local watering holes. Civic life should deliver results with minimal burden on taxpayers’ time. The goal should be less time, less cost, more output. The product is efficient public service delivery, not meetings and entertainment.
A well designed civic calendar is one a lifelong Hudson resident could leave behind for college or a decade away, return without reading a single notice, and know instantly what to do: walk into City Hall at 19:00 on a Tuesday or Wednesday and find the meeting they care about. If Hudson reaches that point, it will have built something rare in twenty-first-century America: a city whose government saves residents’ time instead of consuming it.
P.S. New England’s town-meeting culture has always prized clear, infrequent, citizen-centered calendars. New Hampshire is the purest surviving example. Its 234 towns still resolve their major business in a single open meeting, held statewide on the second Tuesday in March: Town Meeting Day, a legal holiday. Deadlines cascade cleanly: zoning petitions open November 14, budgets close January 31, hearings finish by early March. Vermont mirrors this, with its own March meeting tradition. Between these annual bursts, selectboards handle the routine work. No maze of committees, no weekly procedural grind, minimal opportunity cost. It is the same principle that shapes Swiss cantonal assemblies: batch decisions, reduce drag, respect citizens’ time.
Early America did not romanticize complexity. It built systems that served people, not systems that demanded people serve them. Hudson should do the same.