Special Meeting Notices

I'm afraid I've become a perennial crank, but I want to express a concern regarding the recent notices posted here and on the town email lists:

THERE WILL BE A SPECIAL MEETING OF THE NORWICH SELECTBOARD
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Time: 5:00 PM
Place: Tracy Hall, Multipurpose Room
Agenda: VLCT Workshop on the Roles of the Manager and of the Selectboard and Leadership and Management Roles of the Selectboard

-- and --

A Community Discussion on Norwich Town Highways & Community Facilities
Wednesday, May 6 at 7 PM
Multi-Purpose Meeting Room
Tracy Hall

TOPICS:
Highways • Roads • Bike Paths • Trails
Improvements • Maintenance • New Facilities
Park & Ride

Recreation Facilities
Playing Fields • Pool • Access to River
New facilities

Other Community Facilities

PURPOSE:
An opportunity for community discussion in an informal atmosphere with all ideas and comments welcome
Provide guidance to Town
Provide ideas for the Norwich Town Plan

Basic information will be available on projects underway or planned for immediate future

- - - -

These are both important and useful meetings which directly address persistent concerns/conflicts in town. I applaud the effort to put them together and hope as many interested residents as possible can attend. I'm concerned that public notice for both of these meetings went out Monday afternoon, barely 48 hours prior to the meetings. I'm not interested in open meetings law implications or theories about cabals, etc. I'm simply concerned that a couple days is pretty short notice and will necessarily mean some people will not attend due to other commitments and/or not reading the notices in time. There may very well be good reasons why these notices could not go out earlier, but the net effect is a further gap between Tracy Hall and the rest of us -- not anyone's intent.

Every year, Town Eating discussion ultimately arrives at the question of how to help townspeople become more involved. Every year, some committee or town official takes it on the chin unfairly for decisions made at public sessions by people who weren't in attendance when the decision was discussed. There's no simple answer, but diligent efforts to give people a couple weeks warning of important events is certainly part of it. Businesses looking to drum up sales or raise their profile do this pretty well -- giving people plenty of warning and trying to build momentum as the event nears. It's extra work and more effort, but that's what it takes.

As a town government, we lack the profit motive and clear managerial focus to prompt that effort. It's not merely a matter of Selectboard policies. It's really a question of our political culture and a basic recognition that self-government at this scale is an on-going dialogue which, though time-consuming, is good in itself. It's an approach I gather our police chief and town manager have both internalized to some degree as they both continue to make extraordinary efforts to engage the community. As a town, as a community, we can do a better job of making the time for that dialogue and taking the time to maximize opportunities for as many as possible to participate.