The infamous Tiverton Financial Town Meeting of May 2010 was fundamentally a two-tone affair. There was the red and the yellow, and while individual residents are more likely to be shades of orange, the debate was defined by the purer hues toward which each side tugged. As reductionist as it may be to posit two, simple, opposing forces, doing so allows a model for understanding what has come and what may be expected in public affairs.

The choice of red appears to have derived, ultimately, from Tiverton High School's colors of maroon and white, which translated into red for some incarnations of the youth sports available to local children. In the way of small-town politics, those recreational leagues have provided a base and a platform for political activists drawn mainly from the Democratic Town Committee and supported by the irksomely named Alliance to Preserve Tiverton's Quality.

The statement of those red shirts peppering the high school gymnasium on Financial Town Meeting day was that their wearers are the people of Tiverton, fighting on behalf of the town — as measured by their desire to preserve and expand services offered by the local government and ensure harmonious relationships with its employees. (No doubt, I'm missing nuances related to the color and policy choices, thereby betraying my status as a non-member, but the impression was real and deliberate.)

Implicit in the presumption that to be red is to be the voice of Tiverton is the contrasting assertion that to be yellow is to be something else:  an outsider, residency and voting rights notwithstanding. For convenient emblems of that interloping constituency, the Democrats and Alliance have pointed to the retirement neighborhoods, Countryview Estates and the Villages on Mount Hope Bay, as segregated settlements not concerned with the broader community. Indeed, red-shirt voices have declared them to be "a cancer on the community."

The organizational structure of this supposedly malignant opposition is Tiverton Citizens for Change (TCC), which formed (with my deep involvement) when procedural maneuvers by the municipal government thwarted an effort to limit the tax increase generated by the 2008 FTM. And the significance of the yellow is, well, that it was an eye-catching color for the group's very first political mailing: a card by which it began successfully endorsing sympathetic residents for public office.

That year, TCC placed member Jay Lambert on the Town Council, and Danielle Coulter earned the highest votes of any School Committee candidate. The group also gained a slight edge on the Tiverton Budget Committee to support Chairman Jeff Caron. With that finger on the municipal wheel, voters at the 2009 FTM managed to keep the town's tax levy increase below 4% for the first time this millennium. 

The budget cycle leading up to the 2010 FTM created quite a different picture. The Town Council strove to skirt the procedure for exceeding the state-imposed tax cap, and the School Committee threatened to close schools and end just about every non-academic program in the district if its budget request was not granted. Thus, with limits set by state law neutralized and motivation to accept a large tax increase amplified, the Budget Committee's proposal was easily swept aside by amendments from the FTM floor. 

Naturally, this quick summary of events doesn't capture the nuances of the political battle culminating in the May meeting, and shifts in the balance of power promise to make this year's process very interesting. While unable to raise sufficient attendance at the FTM to win the day, TCC did manage to place all but one of its endorsed candidates on the Town Council. Newly appointed council President Jay Lambert has been joined by TCC President David Nelson, Rob Coulter, and Joan Chabot, all active members of the taxpayer group.

Ed Roderick has been more or less TCC-friendly, and new Vice President Cecil Leonard has at least not been intractably opposed, leaving Brett Pelletier as the only council member who appears likely to have a red shirt beneath his councilor's jacket. 

On the other hand, a lack of candidates forced TCC to cede both the Budget Committee and the School Committee almost entirely to the other side, and it now accounts for only two seats on the former and one on the latter.  The return of former Chairman Christopher Cotta and the addition of former Town Council Vice President Joanne Arruda and Massachusetts teacher Donna Edwards promise a dramatic shift in the perspective of the Budget Committee.

On the School Committee, the uncontested candidacy of Deborah Pallasch, who has been among the most vocal residents speaking on the teachers' union's behalf during past contract disputes and the most zealous opponents of TCC, has moved that governing body even further from the orange center.

What that means for the next FTM is that the budget that the town government proposes will set the default line for "reasonable" in terms much more palatable to the reds than the yellows. However much the Town Council manages to streamline its budget, the Budget Committee can add more, and the School Committee is unlikely to experience as much pressure to crunch its numbers as it has during the past two years.

Whether Tiverton's political tapestry of the next six months is intricate and subtle or streaked with bold splashes of partisan rancor remains to be seen. It's certain, however, to be unique to the Rhode Island scene, perhaps sufficiently to help set the tone for statewide skirmishes.