Town Hall Seating Chart Dispute Enters Third Week; Folding Chairs Now Numbered Like Jury Duty

MAPLE COUNTY — The town hall seating chart dispute has entered its third week, and the Parks and Recreation Department has taken the extraordinary step of numbering all 120 folding chairs, a measure one official compared to jury duty and one resident compared to a wedding where nobody likes the couple.

The conflict began innocently enough at the October candidate forum, when longtime attendee Ethel Marsh, 81, discovered her customary third-row aisle seat occupied by a newcomer. Marsh, who has attended 214 consecutive town halls, responded with what witnesses called a withering look and what the minutes record as a point of order.

I have sat in that chair since the Carter administration, Marsh said. I have outlasted four moderators, two carpet replacements, and one ceiling tile incident. The chair is, in every way that matters, mine.

The newcomer, recent transplant Greg Fennimore, countered that seating is first-come, first-served, a position the town charter arguably supports and Marsh’s glare arguably does not. The forum moderator attempted to resolve the matter with a coin flip, which Marsh won, Fennimore disputed, and the coin — a 1972 Eisenhower dollar — has since been entered into evidence.

In response, the town clerk’s office produced the now-famous seating chart: a laminated diagram assigning seats by seniority of attendance, with tie-breakers determined by volunteer hours and, in one unresolved case, a pie-baking contest. The chart is posted by the door, updated monthly, and has already been defaced once with what officials called constructive feedback in permanent marker.

Reactions are mixed. Senior attendees praise the order; newcomers call it a caste system with cushions. One resident, assigned seat 114 in the back row, has begun bringing binoculars. Another has started arriving 90 minutes early to lobby for seat trades, a practice the clerk’s office has neither approved nor successfully stopped.

The dispute has had one unexpected benefit: town hall attendance is up 40 percent, as residents arrive early to defend their seats or scout better ones. The candidate forum’s actual candidates have reported feeling like opening acts.

The town council will revisit the chart in December. Until then, residents are reminded that chair-saving with personal items is limited to one item, that item may not be a cooler, and that Ethel Marsh’s chair — number 14, third row, aisle — is not to be discussed.