Civic Virtue (Norwich ListServ)

I'm baffled. 

On paper, we probably have the most talented and even-tempered group of Selectboard members I've seen since the early 1990's. 

On paper, at least, this is the most qualified Town Manager we've ever hired. 

The rancor and ill will of the last decade finally seemed to have subsided and yet, in practice, this group has got themselves in a tangle over this tower that is only just beginning. 

Back last December 9th, I posted a lengthy critique of the proposal to site a 198' tower in a valley along the drainage that borders New Boston Road.  In the past nine months, I've spent dozens and dozens of hours writing to the listserv and selectboard, appearing at capital facilities committee and selectboard meetings, and pursuing extended conversations with individual selectboard members and our town manager pleading with them to slow down and revisit the basic premises of a misconceived tower project that is now, perhaps, unraveling before our eyes. 

Over the next ten days, I'm going to post a steady stream of sometimes pointed critiques of how we got into this mess.  I hope to persuade those town officials, townspeople, and taxpayers who still need persuading that we need to reject the VTel contract and get on with building a tower that actually is designed to serve the community for the long-term. The VTel tower proposal was designed and managed in a manner that has, I feel, diminished town institutions and now threatens to discredit the selectboard members and town manager who have -- in the earnest belief they are doing the right thing -- championed it.

For now, I just want to relate one important lesson -- the essential civic virtue -- I've learned these past nine months: 
Embrace the opposition. 
Try, in good faith, to understand what they are saying, however shrill or close-minded they may seem, simply on the off chance they may see something you do not. 
Give them a listen because we don't know what we don't know and it's often the least pleasant experiences that teach us the most. 
And in a democracy, trust in compromise with those who oppose you because, over time, unilateral decisions simply don't survive.

One of the best examples of this civic virtue in action can be found in our chief of police, Doug Robinson. 
For those who recall a few years back, Chief Robinson, fairly new to the job and working under an earlier town manager, found himself and his department raked across the coals for being out of touch with the community he was meant to serve.  The difference in his response and that of his boss was marked.  Doug went out of his way to meet with concerned citizens wherever they wanted to talk; patiently explained his views on difficult topics and showed flexibility as he came to understand opposing viewpoints.  He listened then and has since exhibited that same wisdom and good judgment in some very difficult settings, in the effort becoming a chief of police who completely nullified the concerns many townspeople had expressed about the size and mentality of our police force, becoming an exemplary public servant and a true asset to the town. 
His boss, less flexible and more confident in his own road, has since moved on.

Most of the mistakes made in this tower misadventure, I believe, are the result of haste and a fundamental misjudgment -- made nine months ago -- that the looming FCC deadline justified trying to bull through the opposition.  Our current town manager is an individual of exceptional talents and, with due respect to his predecessors, his capabilities far exceed even what we thought we might find when we first recommended creating a town manager position a decade ago. I strongly believe this town manager can also become an exemplary public servant and long-term asset to the town if he can learn to trust this same civic virtue. 

Our efforts to present a practical alternative to the current proposal -- based on demonstrated community standards and designed to serve both public safety and broadband telecommunications goals that may well be more cost effective and more functional -- has fallen on deaf ears these past months.  It's time to stop dismissing those of us who live near New Boston Road as NIMBYites and those who live further off as vocal cranks.  Time is running out, there's important work to do and the mistakes made today in the name of expediency will, in retrospect, seem incomprehensible errors this town will have to live with for decades. 

When Common Sense Isn't Enough

I've set out my own views on gay marriage and equal rights for homosexuals in earlier posts here and here.

My argument has always been one of strategy, not results.

I still think establishing civil unions in all fifty states would be the quickest and most effective way to bring the right of marriage to all citizens regardless of sexual orientation, but the direct litigation campaign has taken precedence.

Today's federal district court decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger is the first fruit of the direct litigation route and has brought the constitutional arguments concerning gay marriage sharply into focus.

Gay marriage proponents could hardly ask for a more common sense and matter-of-fact exposition on how California's Proposition 8 fails to pass constitutional muster.

While I'm persuaded by the reasoning, and take a professional interest in the craftsmanship, I also recognize I'm sympathetic with the outcome.

The more rational me recognizes that Judge Walker's decision rests entirely on a legal house of cards -- a very generous articulation of "fundamental rights."

The history of this debate over "fundamental rights" is as long and contoured as the history of the nation itself.

The current composition of our Supreme Court manifests a certain chapter in that debate, but a chapter which is highly unlikely to establish same-sex marriage as fundamental.

This Court is dominated by a political desire to circumscribe the expansion of "fundamental rights;" counterbalanced at the margin (Justice Kennedy) by a libertarian distrust of the state's authority to punish or sanction certain behaviors.

The identification of same-sex marriage as a fundamental right is not simply unpersuasive in their eyes. It's an incitement. A blatant example of how unprincipled and unhinged our constitutional jurisprudence has become. Further evidence of how unelected judges oppress individual conscience by championing their own personal values as "fundamental rights."

Indeed, the current court may prove to be the high water mark of this tide against expanding fundamental rights. Perversely, a Supreme Court ruling in this case may prove to be a sign that tide has begun to ebb.

Let's assume Perry works its way through the Ninth Circuit this year and reaches the Supreme Court in their October 2011 term. We should see a decision in June 2012, almost certainly reversing the district court, very likely on a 5-4 vote.

The final word? Hardly.

November 2012 we vote once more for president.

Will Perry be a symbol of the Supreme Court restricting our individual freedom to choose a mate or will it be a symbol of the Supreme Court vindicating the sanctity of the institution of marriage? You want to know where the majority of voters stand nationally, just watch the Republican Party squirm these next two years.

As with the abortion debate, same-sex marriage is an argument they don't want to win because the on-going debate is so valuable to them as a recruitment and fund-raising tool. The aggrieved and oppressed retain a unity in their opposition which falls apart in their ascendance. Republicans do much better as victims in opposition.

It's going to be messy and it's going to get loud, but that's how this conversation plays.

In terms of constitutional jurisprudence, I think same-sex marriage is a matter of equal rights and not fundamental rights. The equal rights argument is irresistible. The fundamantal rights argument is implausible until the vast majority of Americans are persuaded this is a matter of equal rights. Once that occurs, equal rights are fundamental rights. That is simply a matter of time, but it's clear from today's decision in Perry, it will be a long and winding path.

Go King Arthur!?

Two points in response to Stan's listserv post earlier today.

First, I'm taking issue with the state of planning and permitting in town.

Sewer extensions and waste water capacity have a direct bearing on development potential throughout the commercial and village districts. Sewer extensions and wastewater treatment have been debated in town for decades. The sticking points have always revolved around infrastructure cost and impact on future development. These are real issues reflecting intelligent, reasoned yet differing points of view.

For those who have followed the debates, a sewer extension request on Route 5 South (or across the Ledyard Bridge) was inevitable. And yet, knowing it would come, we are ill-prepared as a town government and a community to actually engage it.

Stan is 100% right that King Arthur shouldn't have to wait years for this town to come up with a plan for commercial development on Route 5 South. I'll go further and say King Arthur shouldn't have to bear the entire cost of design and infrastructure for a sewer extension it seems obvious will also benefit King Arthur's Route 5 South neighbors in years to come. Leaving the entire cost to King Arthur means they build to suit their own needs based on their own cost sensitivity. We end up with infrastructure built to serve an ad hoc need we will later tap into and quite possibly need to upgrade for other users. A poor use of King Arthur's time and treasure and a poor use of our own as well.

We also continue a pattern of ad hoc development decisions that make a mockery out of the planning and permitting process. No one plans for or designs sprawl -- it's the result of many incremental development decisions which eventually overburden infrastructure and alter the entire character of a landscape. Many of those decisions -- including here in Vermont -- are greased by developer offers to fund infrastructure improvements themselves and arguments that it's unfair to change the rules after a history of permitting ad hoc development on abutting properties. In this context, I think, Stan's "what's not to like?" approach may be both short-sighted and, uh, breezy.

As Stan points out, we are very fortunate to have our main development pressure in this instance being exerted by a very conscious and forward-thinking company that has demonstrated real sensitivity to its physical setting. So let's engage them and help each other create a plan for this stretch of town that can be a long-term home to King Arthur and businesses like them before we start facing less benevolent developers.

And yet, King Arthur first floated the idea of a sewer extension with town officials last autumn. To my knowledge, in the interim, there has been no effort to initiate a public discussion of the impacts and opportunities such an extension might pose. We've failed to plan adequately for this scale of development on Route 5 South. We've now let seven or eight months pass since this specific project hit the public radar and, to my knowledge, made no progress engaging the longer term implications of this sewer extension proposal. The answer is not "King Arthur are good people so what's there to talk about?"



My second point concerns rhetoric.

For a decade now, public discourse in this town has been marred by ridicule and dismissiveness towards opposing points of view. My tolerance for ridicule and dismissive comments may be lower than most, but it's not just a question of gentility and manners.

Example: I may not agree with a lot of what Stuart Richards says, but I think painting him as "anti-growth" glosses over the details of his concerns without much effort to understand them. Am I "anti-growth" because I think what I've expressed in the prior paragraphs? Am I the same "anti-growth" as Stuart Richards? What if Stuart thinks I'm "pro-growth?" Does this make Stan "pro-growth" without exception?

The tags are stupid because they are unexpressive. We are not just binary beings going through life defined as pro- or anti- this or that. Efforts to cast us in these roles are lazy attempts to make decisions feel black-and-white when, at least in my experience, they tend to the gray spectrum. Reducing someone's point of view to pro- or anti- anything is an act of indifference, or worse, contempt.

I'm a big fan of disagreement because it forces people to think -- about their own point of view and about others'.

I can't countenance dismissiveness.

Seniority Preamble (Cross-Post)

(A comment to this blog post: http://anemicvolunteer.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-i-am-anemic-volunteer-part-1.html)

There is one important function to this seniority preamble in my opinion. It reveals whether an individual has lived in town long enough to have a reasonable chance of gathering why certain walls were built before advocating to tear them down.

The social necessity of testifying to one's term of residency is a nod to the cultural struggle occuring here in Norwich and throughout rural America to some degree. At its worst, that struggle flares up in the form of a Ruth Dwyer and the "Take Back Vermont" sloganeering of a few years back. At its core, the struggle is far less invidious, but probably much more important.

The rural agricultural traditions of this town and region are giving way to an urban/suburban ethos which values the physical rural character of the place, but runs roughshod over the rural character of the community and its institutions. In the past two decades this town has abandoned traditional town meeting, instituted a town manager form of government, and professionalized its police force and fire department. These changes aren't necessarily bad, but they signify a departure from the libertarian self-reliance and consensual interdependence of the community and institution which they replace.

I'm as guilty as anyone in town, spending some time on the town manager review committee and toiling for some years in an effort to bureaucratize land use regulation in town.

I don't think having spent my entire life in Norwich would have changed my views -- there have been plenty of life long residents behind these efforts as well.

I do think I've been around long enough to recognize some of the costs to these changes, enough to question those costs at least. And they aren't insignificant, but that's another topic.

Political Signs

An interesting question was raised this evening at Town Meeting by Jim Adler at the very end of the meeting. He rose to speak against a campaign sign which appeared in front of the Simpson townhouses Monday morning. The sign read something like "Alison May - Not!"

Jim spoke against the negative sentiment expressed in the sign, arguing that there was no place for negative campaigning such as this in a small town. He went on to state that he had removed the sign on his own initiative and, if anyone felt their First Amendment right to free speech had been infringed by that removal, they should speak to him directly.

I thought for a moment to rise and express my own view on the matter, particularly as Jim's statement received a good deal of applause, but it was late and people were ready to go home. So I'll state it here: I disagree with Jim on both points and believe his sentiments and actions ultimately illustrate why the First Amendment is necessary.

I first saw the sign in question driving out of town this morning. I do not endorse or support either Alison May or Sharon Racusin in this race so my susceptibility to partisan outrage may be rusty here. My first thought when I saw the sign was, "Does Sharon Racusin realize this sign is out here?" I don't know the answer but understand she is away.

To my mind, such a negative statement raised the question whether Sharon supported that kind of campaigning. If not, I felt, she had perhaps been done a disservice by whoever placed the sign. On the other hand, if Sharon actually supported that kind of campaigning, voters could make their own conclusions about her methods. The real menace of the sign was not, in my mind, the negative statement towards Alison May, but the implication Sharon Racusin was behind it -- an implication Sharon is not around to disavow or defend.

By removing the sign, Jim Adler unilaterally shut down a debate which might well have developed in a direction quite different from his initial, visceral reaction. Norwich voters have steadily punished divisive candidates over the past few election cycles and the possibility those signs might backfire would be a far stronger disincentive to that kind of campaigning than any scolding at the waning moments of town meeting might do. Instead we're left to decide between negative campaigning and self-anointed censors of political speech. Personally, I prefer negative campaigning because I can vote against them.

I also disagree with the implication of Jim's challenge to those who placed the signs -- taunting them to come speak to him directly if they felt he had infringed on their right to free speech. Want to know why Vermont towns continue to abandon open floor voting at town meeting for the secret Australian ballot? Look no further. The right to one's own conscience within a democracy does not easily survive the opprobrium of exposing one's views to the self-certain righteousness of certain neighbors. Jim may feel very strongly that there's no place for negative campaigning in Norwich, but why does that sentiment trump the sign-maker's apparently equally strong feeling that there's no place for Alison May on the Norwich Selectboard? In a nation of laws it does not. Our Constitution says protect the right to free speech and trust the people to determine whether the speaker is an idiot. Idiots can't keep their mouths shut for long. On the other hand, the power to silence deprives not simply the right to speak out, but also the right to hear what is said, think about it, and decide for oneself.

Jim, in my opinion you've acted rashly both in removing the sign and trumpeting the fact at town meeting. I hope some of the many who applauded you this evening will weigh in here to help me understand what was laudable about it.

And next time, please, instead of removing the sign that offends you, put up a sign right next to it saying, "Is this what we want in town government?" or "Is this leadership?" or maybe just a sign with an arrow pointing at the offender saying "I'm with stupid."

The Myth of Faction

It appears Norwich has reached that unhappy state where politics trumps good governance.

Some observers point to bloc voting in recent years as evidence of meaningful differences between two ideologically distinct factions. I simply don't see it.

Instead, I see two loose confederations of individuals, each united primarily in reaction to a perceived transgression by the other. Arguments as to how this all started -- who cast the first stone -- simply highlight the fact both sides feel abundantly provoked. An accumulation of slights have bred a series of personal animosities which now often cloud rational, thoughtful decision-making.

In my view, it is an open question whether the current Selectboard membership and their respective supporters can find a practical path away from the personality-driven politics of the present. Certainly, the path begins with a determination to place the good of the town ahead of the expediency of faction. This requires the discipline of tolerance to take seriously the concerns of those we dislike as legitimate concerns however illegitimately we may feel they have been expressed. It requires the humility to recognize our own proviniciality and seek to understand the views of our opponents for how they might illuminate our own blind spots. And it requires the practical sense to recognize today's slim majority does not further it's own interests by running roughshod over yesterday's slim majority. Finally, it requires the leadership to listen patiently to all sides and treat them all fairly as a good in itself.

The people of Norwich deserve the government we demand. Maybe it's time to ask for more?

Norwich Woes - (Valley News Op-Ed)

To The Editor:

Alex Hanson's May 27th article ("Norwich Couple's Complaint Brings Deeper Discord To Surface") asserts that "Norwich is sharply divided over issues of growth and development. For the last several years, that division has become increasingly personal." Mr. Hanson's attempt to place the town's factional nonsense within some kind of substantive context is understandable but doesn't bear scrutiny.

Town government in Norwich is indeed "sharply divided," but growth and development issues are simply the flavors of the month. Seven years ago, the divisions flared up over litigation with certain tax-exempt entities in town; five years ago it was Selectboard meeting times; three years ago it was police staffing and class four roads; this year it is the Planning Commission. The only consistent thread through these and myriad other recent conflicts in town has been the cast of characters arrayed on either side.

I have friends and acquaintances in both camps and I have yet to see any meaningful policy differences between the two. All I see are two camps, steeped in the politics of outrage; no longer able to recognize the provocations of their own conduct because they are so intent upon exposing the machinations of their opponents. It's all personal and putative policy differences are simply vehicles to whip up the troops for the next election. The important question Norwich residents should be asking themselves is: Where will it end?

On the one hand, Norwich voters have shown an increasing willingness to vote out incumbents from both factions. Perhaps the outrage is turning upon itself and will eventually consume its promoters. On the other hand, the political circus leaves little room for the soft-spoken. I hate to think the current volume and vitriol of town politics might become business as usual in Norwich. I hate to think a community such as ours would settle for government by the loudest especially when, if you dig beneath the demagoguery, there's so little to shout about.