We hear that Phillipston has people talking about how much it cares about its elder voters and others who may not hear well.
The town now has made available various external hearing aid sets for anyone hard of hearing at public meetings.
According to the town’s Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Flynn, the town received 24 sets of headphones and equipment manufactured by Minnesota-based Williams Sound.
“We noticed that people at Selectman’s meetings and at Town Meetings have said they have trouble hearing” said Flynn.
Phillipston received three types of equipment, all used to assist in hearing, including a set that connects to the town’s public address system.
The equipment was made available by a grant from the Massachusetts Councils on Aging, as well as Phillipston’s Council on Aging.
“Not long after this year’s Town Meeting, there was a notice for a matching grant from the Massachusetts Councils on Aging saying they would pay $3 for every $1 we contributed,” said Flynn.
The equipment can be used at various public meetings at Town Hall, including Selectboard meetings, annual Town Meetings and other various meetings throughout the year.
Flynn said the town does not record or broadcast its public meetings, but the idea has been discussed.
“We have talked about broadcasting them — we are still looking at that and will have to acquire some other equipment to make that happen,” he said.
They are portable sets that can serve multiple people on different frequencies, so if there are two meetings in Town Hall at once that works,” Administrative Officer Kevin Flynn said. “Some plug into the PA or pick up the frequencies from the microphones the speaker is using.”
The headsets will be available at town meetings as well as smaller meetings throughout the year.
One of the devices can serve up to 10 people and are good for 500 feet, so people sitting in the back of a room will be able to hear. Another device has cables that will plug into a public address system, while another kind will allow people wearing hearing aids that have telephone adaptors to hear the speaker directly without the additional headset.
The town is considering other hi-tech aids as well to enable even more people to see and hear public meetings. They are considering using public PA systems and a GoPro camera to videotape and record public meetings, which will allow them to be broadcast live as well as uploaded on the town website or YouTube, as Hubbardston and Templeton do.
“We are looking into having the GoPro tape it at first, it would be in a fixed position in the back of the room,” Flynn said. “Over time we will work toward getting those cameras that rotate and you can zoom in on speakers like the other towns have.”
All these ideas extend the participation and voting franchise of the town’s handicapped and elder citizens. For those with deafness from disease or just advancing years, the tendency is to avoid large social gatherings where it can be difficult to follow a discussion and embarrassing if they can’t hold up their end of a dialog. The whole process can bring on a frustration that just keeps people away from participating in the democratic process that is at the heart of small town government.
So, it’s nice to see the town leaders and its Council on Aging are so sensitive and pro-active about the needs of what after all is a growing portion of our population as the baby boomer demographic ages.