I thoroughly enjoyed Stonington's town meeting, my first ever, at which voters this week agreed to spend the money to create a wonderful new park on the Mystic River.

Best of all was the outcome: hundreds of hands held high in the air in support of a great new community project.

I especially enjoyed the communal nature of the whole thing, residents of a small New England town coming together to discuss and decide an important issue.

People showed up wearing everything from fresh-from-the office attire to shorts and T-shirts. Some little ones tagged along.

We all lined up to show identification in a queue that wound across the long front façade of the high school to the full parking lot.

I went to the meeting with my mind already made up. Still, it was enlightening to hear again, sometimes firsthand from the people involved, why this is such a good idea — from the views it will open up for the main gateway into the heart of the town's tourism district, to the permanent home it will create for the town's successful student rowing teams.

Kudos to the Board of Selectmen for seizing the opportunity to acquire this property, developing the plans and moving it along to voters for a final decision.

And yet I had to agree with the gentleman who, during the open-mic comment section, complained about the final vote being sent by selectmen to a town meeting rather than a referendum.

It seems clear by the large attendance at the meeting and the overwhelming number of yea votes, that the measure would have passed at either referendum or town meeting.

And the town meeting, as selectmen noted, saved the town $7,000.

I am not sure that's appreciable savings, though, when you are talking about spending more than $2 million.

And as the complaining voter said at the meeting, the decision to forego a referendum clearly disenfranchised some voters and prevented them from participating.

Parents with small kids at home, voters with two jobs, people attending school at night, all naturally are precluded from devoting the several hours it took to vote on the park question.

Almost anyone, on the other hand, can spare the little time it takes to stop by a local poll to cast a vote, maybe on their way to or from school or work.

Next time a vote occurs in a town meeting, they might miss something even more important than a proposed park.

It seemed to me the crowd this week skewed older, like me, people who don't have young ones at home to take care of.

The other thing I didn't like about the town meeting vote was the lack of a secret ballot.

Honestly, with the enthusiastic crowd that turned out to endorse the park this week, it would have been hard to stand up as the wet blanket and vote no in full view of your neighbors.

It is, by nature, intimidating.

The town meeting is a New England tradition, one with a long and impressive history.

I'm sure there was a time when the citizens of Stonington enjoyed putting down their plows or nets and having a chance to convene to decide together the important business of the town.

But we live in a very different world today, and I think we all deserve a convenient opportunity to vote, in private, to squeeze a little democracy into our busy schedules.

Maybe a town forum to discuss an issue with presentations followed by a public comment session, all leading up to a referendum vote, might be a way to combine the best of both ways to educate and achieve an answer.

I'm glad how the park vote turned out this week. But I hope it also might be a warning that all voters should be included in important decisions.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com