Well, it looks like Neil Fulton's finally got his tower.
And make no mistake, this tower, Fulton Tower, will be built almost entirely due to his hard work and iron determination. For both good and bad, I think it's fitting that his name should be attached to it.
To the good, Neil recognized a real public safety need and aggressively addressed the looming FCC narrowbanding deadline. At nearly every meeting I've attended on this matter, his department chiefs have spoken honestly and forcefully about the anxious losses in emergency communications that a town of our resources need not tolerate. As anyone who has experienced a real emergency understands, help either arrives in time or it does not. Neil's confident this communications system can reach 95% of the town 95% of the time. That's a real achievement and it's only a matter of time until the next real emergency puts that achievement in its proper context.
Neil's also a very, very effective grant-gleaner and has single-handedly coordinated an effort to retool our emergency communications infrastructure almost entirely through other folks money. That's a real, practical skill -- with potential to greatly benefit the town and our tax bills -- that we've simply lacked until he took over.
To the not so good, Fulton Tower has been, without question, a one-man show.
Every decision about this tower -- from tower height to where it should be built; the how, the when and the where -- has been Neil's. (Every decision save one -- the failed bond vote a couple weeks back. For those who didn't attend this last Selectboard meeting, Neil's found a way to avoid risking another bond vote.) Despite very substantial, sustained, and detailed public input seeking changes, Neil's original design and location for this tower have not changed in any significant way since first made public last December. It begs the question how anyone with a different opinion was ever supposed to have input on the design and siting of this tower.
Get used to it Norwich. Public forums are planned for the new fire/police station at the Agway property. We, the taxpayers, haven't technically bought the Agway property -- yet -- but the last Selectboard packet includes detailed architectural drawings of the new station on this site, right down to the placement of bicycle racks and wall lights.
Maybe Neil will let us choose the color?
Of the bike rack?
The real problem with a one-man show is that no one man or woman can have all the right answers. The best leaders I've known all possessed the humility to understand better decisions come from active engagement with opposing points of view on the off-chance -- surprisingly common -- one might learn something important by really listening.
Based on these past nine months, I'd say Neil has little time for our planning and zoning efforts, for the uniquely Vermont principle of institutionalizing the competing public and private interests at play in any land development through citizen-based review.
Based on my legal experience, both the VTel and Clem/Agway proposals suggest to me Neil may also be out of his depth in development contracts. Mr Guite and Mr Clem probably didn't achieve their respective business success by accommodating an easy mark.
In my opinion, these are the inevitable blind spots that come with great talent in the zero-sum world of human intelligence. A confident, assertive Selectboard might counter-balance these shortcomings without impairing Neil's real talents. Maybe. But as I've just learned in spades, Neil's greatest talent is in knowing how to get his way. That, to me, has ominous implications when we're talking about town administrative staff meant to advise and support our town's legislative body. Which is really my point.
This town has an elected legislative body accountable to the voters. Like it or not, the 3-2 vote to proceed with Fulton Tower, sponsored by VTel, showed tremendous political courage by each of our elected Selectboard members. To their immense credit, each of the five has spoken openly, honestly, and bravely about why they voted as they did. Those they represent can ask no more than that. It's our prerogative as voters to choose whether they serve. It's their right and duty, once elected, to serve as they see fit.
This town also has a town manager accountable directly to the Selectboard. In the eleven years we've had a town manager, we're already on our fourth, so it's obvious the relationship between an elected Selectboard and their professional staff is not an easy one. From where I sit - - and I'll do my best to get used to an eighteen-story albatross out the window across from me - - Fulton Tower represents a new reality in the evolution of our town manager form of government. With respect to Fulton Tower, my role, as a town resident, has been reduced to a decision whether to sue the town in an attempt to force them (us?) to enforce our zoning regulations upon our own public infrastructure projects. Whatever other role I imagined I had has been negated, sandbagged, side-stepped or dissembled away.
I've been on the losing side of many battles, but this one has really gutted me. Most of it I have to put down to my own unrealistic expectations.
The reality is three Selectboard members patiently listened to every argument I, and many others, have made against Fulton Tower -- and everything it represents -- yet they were not persuaded.
The reality is I've personally spent an inordinate amount of time these past two decades hand-wringing over planning, zoning, and how small town democracy "is supposed to work" largely naive to how calculated power actually holds sway.
The reality is I have a day job and the late nights pontificating here and elsewhere -- particularly these last nine months -- have finally caught up to me.
The reality is when we adopted a Town Manager eleven years ago, we created a bureaucracy. We put in place a paid official who has more time and greater resources to shape town policy than either residents or the Selectboard/citizens who oversee that Town Manager can bring to bear.
I feel very fortunate to have lived through that transition from an older Vermont to our Town Manager-led town government because, despite the deep sense of loss, I was there to witness the necessity of the change. Maybe it's the greying hair and our kids beginning to leave the nest, but that sense of loss; the sense that the place we call home exists more and more in the past, has become inescapable for me.
A friend told me a while back what a relief she felt when she finally unsubscribed from this listserv and let town politics go on without her. I'm going to try that for a while.
Thanks for reading.
And make no mistake, this tower, Fulton Tower, will be built almost entirely due to his hard work and iron determination. For both good and bad, I think it's fitting that his name should be attached to it.
To the good, Neil recognized a real public safety need and aggressively addressed the looming FCC narrowbanding deadline. At nearly every meeting I've attended on this matter, his department chiefs have spoken honestly and forcefully about the anxious losses in emergency communications that a town of our resources need not tolerate. As anyone who has experienced a real emergency understands, help either arrives in time or it does not. Neil's confident this communications system can reach 95% of the town 95% of the time. That's a real achievement and it's only a matter of time until the next real emergency puts that achievement in its proper context.
Neil's also a very, very effective grant-gleaner and has single-handedly coordinated an effort to retool our emergency communications infrastructure almost entirely through other folks money. That's a real, practical skill -- with potential to greatly benefit the town and our tax bills -- that we've simply lacked until he took over.
To the not so good, Fulton Tower has been, without question, a one-man show.
Every decision about this tower -- from tower height to where it should be built; the how, the when and the where -- has been Neil's. (Every decision save one -- the failed bond vote a couple weeks back. For those who didn't attend this last Selectboard meeting, Neil's found a way to avoid risking another bond vote.) Despite very substantial, sustained, and detailed public input seeking changes, Neil's original design and location for this tower have not changed in any significant way since first made public last December. It begs the question how anyone with a different opinion was ever supposed to have input on the design and siting of this tower.
Get used to it Norwich. Public forums are planned for the new fire/police station at the Agway property. We, the taxpayers, haven't technically bought the Agway property -- yet -- but the last Selectboard packet includes detailed architectural drawings of the new station on this site, right down to the placement of bicycle racks and wall lights.
Maybe Neil will let us choose the color?
Of the bike rack?
The real problem with a one-man show is that no one man or woman can have all the right answers. The best leaders I've known all possessed the humility to understand better decisions come from active engagement with opposing points of view on the off-chance -- surprisingly common -- one might learn something important by really listening.
Based on these past nine months, I'd say Neil has little time for our planning and zoning efforts, for the uniquely Vermont principle of institutionalizing the competing public and private interests at play in any land development through citizen-based review.
Based on my legal experience, both the VTel and Clem/Agway proposals suggest to me Neil may also be out of his depth in development contracts. Mr Guite and Mr Clem probably didn't achieve their respective business success by accommodating an easy mark.
In my opinion, these are the inevitable blind spots that come with great talent in the zero-sum world of human intelligence. A confident, assertive Selectboard might counter-balance these shortcomings without impairing Neil's real talents. Maybe. But as I've just learned in spades, Neil's greatest talent is in knowing how to get his way. That, to me, has ominous implications when we're talking about town administrative staff meant to advise and support our town's legislative body. Which is really my point.
This town has an elected legislative body accountable to the voters. Like it or not, the 3-2 vote to proceed with Fulton Tower, sponsored by VTel, showed tremendous political courage by each of our elected Selectboard members. To their immense credit, each of the five has spoken openly, honestly, and bravely about why they voted as they did. Those they represent can ask no more than that. It's our prerogative as voters to choose whether they serve. It's their right and duty, once elected, to serve as they see fit.
This town also has a town manager accountable directly to the Selectboard. In the eleven years we've had a town manager, we're already on our fourth, so it's obvious the relationship between an elected Selectboard and their professional staff is not an easy one. From where I sit - - and I'll do my best to get used to an eighteen-story albatross out the window across from me - - Fulton Tower represents a new reality in the evolution of our town manager form of government. With respect to Fulton Tower, my role, as a town resident, has been reduced to a decision whether to sue the town in an attempt to force them (us?) to enforce our zoning regulations upon our own public infrastructure projects. Whatever other role I imagined I had has been negated, sandbagged, side-stepped or dissembled away.
I've been on the losing side of many battles, but this one has really gutted me. Most of it I have to put down to my own unrealistic expectations.
The reality is three Selectboard members patiently listened to every argument I, and many others, have made against Fulton Tower -- and everything it represents -- yet they were not persuaded.
The reality is I've personally spent an inordinate amount of time these past two decades hand-wringing over planning, zoning, and how small town democracy "is supposed to work" largely naive to how calculated power actually holds sway.
The reality is I have a day job and the late nights pontificating here and elsewhere -- particularly these last nine months -- have finally caught up to me.
The reality is when we adopted a Town Manager eleven years ago, we created a bureaucracy. We put in place a paid official who has more time and greater resources to shape town policy than either residents or the Selectboard/citizens who oversee that Town Manager can bring to bear.
I feel very fortunate to have lived through that transition from an older Vermont to our Town Manager-led town government because, despite the deep sense of loss, I was there to witness the necessity of the change. Maybe it's the greying hair and our kids beginning to leave the nest, but that sense of loss; the sense that the place we call home exists more and more in the past, has become inescapable for me.
A friend told me a while back what a relief she felt when she finally unsubscribed from this listserv and let town politics go on without her. I'm going to try that for a while.
Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment