Voting "No" on Article 1

The Energy Committee — Linda Gray and Aaron Lamperti in particular — have done remarkable work raising awareness about conservation and transitioning to low/no-carbon energy sources.  I’m wary of opposing something they’ve worked so hard to guide through, but I will be voting “NO” on Article 1 next Tuesday.

I’m a big fan of geothermal technology.  I support the idea of developing a geothermal district that can serve Tracy Hall and other public — and private — buildings downtown.  I believe a well-conceived and executed geothermal development can be a long-term asset to the town.  But we cannot even begin that discussion until Article 1 is defeated.  

I agree with Steve Flanders and Chris Katucki who both point out the Selectboard has no incentive to consider broader application of geothermal — or even potential cost savings on the current proposal — until Article 1 is defeated.  

The initial success of (what was) Article 8 proves there is broad interest in low carbon solutions.  It proves hundreds of residents are willing to bear higher taxes to achieve that, so voting down Article 1 shouldn’t be viewed as a defeat for geothermal.  It should simply continue the dialogue in town to balance cost and breadth of coverage so more residents are convinced we are achieving this goal the right way.  

Please vote “NO” on Article 1.

Watt Alexander 

School Choice and Taxes

I can't help noting the irony of Eileen's post this AM: "Willow School K-3 Open House Sunday" juxtaposed upon much hand-wringing at Town Meeting over falling enrollment at Marion Cross School (and our similarly ironic relief that Norwich' proportionate share of Dresden taxes is lower due to fewer Norwich kids in Dresden schools).

Knowing Eileen and knowing the two excellent teachers behind the Willow School, I think it's important to recognize that MCS is not and cannot be the one-size-fits-all best option for all our residents' children. Parents have many choices, including home schooling. Before criticizing those families who choose private school alternatives to MCS, it's worth considering the odd injustice those families face paying private tuition on top of paying their property taxes supporting MCS.

Basing public education funding on local property taxes raises all kinds of strange inequities, particularly as a greater proportion of our school budgets are dictated by decisions made far beyond our own community. A less obvious, but ultimately more difficult, problem is how deeply invested we are in a model for public education that dates back a century ago and may be reaching its legal and fiscal limits.

On the legal front, the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris exposed the tenuous legal principles limiting school voucher programs. Voucher advocates for both religious and secular private schooling have been aggressively litigating to pry the door opened by Zelman wide open. A logical conclusion for this line of cases -- woven together with advocacy for school funding based more broadly than local property taxes -- is very likely a system based on vouchers for all children and our public schools being but one of any number of competitors for those voucher-supported students.

On the fiscal side here in Vermont, it's hard not to be discouraged at the local costs incurred by the principle of equal education opportunity enunciated in Brigham, codified in Act 60 and modified further in Act 68. The political pressure to limit local authority over spending appears to be growing as more voters question the statewide school funding formula. It's probably simply a matter of time before Montpelier and any number of other state capitols demand and get the authority to negotiate union contracts statewide on cost containment and insurance purchasing power grounds. At that point, our local school are no longer local schools in the current sense; they'll be state schools and local private schools may reflect local education values more accurately.

The bottom line is we're in a mess that is only partially due to our CLA, the current economy, and our own decisions. I was distressed to hear the accusations back and forth at Town Meeting implying bad faith on the part of volunteer committee and board members; suggesting that votes made on fiscal grounds expressed a lack of support for education; or that our budget issues could best be addressed by teachers taking voluntary pay cuts. The problems we face aren't that simple and the solutions certainly won't be that easy.

Point of Order

I have a question that I hope listserv readers might help me understand from this evening's information Town Meeting.

At the outset, we were admonished by the Moderator that there was to be no discussion of pending litigation. Any attempt to raise an issue of pending litigation would be ruled non-germane and cut off. I don't have any dogs in any litigation currently before the Selectboard so this didn't impact me personally, but it bothers me to be told the citizens of this town cannot raise concerns about pending litigation at an informational town meeting. When the traditional "other business" article was read, I rose to ask the Moderator what the legal basis for this gag order might be. He read a memo from the Secretary of State's office stating the issues of pending litigation not warned in an article is not germane, so must be raised at a Selectboard meeting where it can be placed on the Selectboard's agenda.

I think this is an incorrect statement of the law when applied to informational town meetings, but I'm interested to hear any defense of this rule.

"Germaneness" as a procedural concept for meetings run pursuant to Roberts Rules, applies to amendments to warned articles. The idea is to avoid having a warned article amended so drastically that it no longer expresses what the original article was meant to raise. A non-germane amendment risks depriving voters of having a reasonable opportunity to know what articles would be voted on at town meeting. An example would be a warned article asking whether to reduce the Town Manager's salary by 5% being amended at town meeting to ask whether the town should do away with a town manager form of government entirely. Voters have the right to know -- weeks in advance -- the scope of questions raised in the warned articles so they can decide how to they wish to vote and whether they even feel the need to show up.

We in Norwich did away with voting town meetings some time ago. Our town meeting is now strictly informational with no ability to vote, let alone amend, a warned article. The Secretary of State's opinion on pending litigation and the concept of germaneness don't make much sense in the context of a purely informational town meeting. While it may be foolish for a selectboard member to comment on pending litigation during an informational town meeting, it seems absurd to me to limit the townspeople's right to question the costs or benefits of pending litigation.

Academic and arcane, right?

Not really.

Later, during the school budget portion of the meeting, one resident spoke of the need for greater transparency in special education expenditures. There has been a struggle for several years now at the school board and SAU level over special education policy. To some, it appears the SAU has been particularly aggressive in litigating out-of-district placement issues (generally residential programs for young people who need services that exceed the capacities of our schools) -- referred to as "extraordinary special education expenditures" in the school budget. Litigation of these matters is particularly fraught as they invariably involve a young person in crisis, their family struggling to deal with the child's crisis, and the school district trying to balance budgets against the indeterminate potential for that child to harm his/her self or others. Real lives, real risks, real suffering in our schools, in our community, and sometimes a six-digit "extraordinary expense" figure in our school budget.

The SAU has employed a prominent special education attorney for several years now who has strenuously challenged many (most? all?) out-of-district placement requests made by parents of young people in our district. Is she doing a good job? Is she saving us money, curtailing illegitimate requests and making sure the districts' taxpayers' rights and interests are being protected? Or is she doing a poor job, milking the district for legal fees and simply prolonging the fiscal and emotional distress of the families involved when an out-of-district placement might have made more sense from the outset?

Now go ask the SAU or our school boards for our litigation expenses to contest out-of-district placements over the past year, five years, or past decade. Ask our school administrators and school board what our district policy is in determining whether to accept or challenge an out-of-district placement. You'll run into a wall of privacy concerns and find, as a result, that a significant portion of our school budget operates within a veritable black box. There aren't necessarily any villains here, just very difficult issues which no one seems at liberty to discuss in any significant way.

Yet, if I were a parent of a child needing services beyond what a traditional classroom allows, I would find the school budget discussions before voters at informational town meeting absolutely chilling. Special Education is an expense line. Extraordinary out-of-district placements are a fiscal setback. Can't I ask how much money our taxpayers are paying lawyers to litigate out-of-district special ed placements? Can't I ask how much money our school administrators and school boards feel they've saved us by defeating improper requests? What if I think our litigation posture is short-sighted and our attorneys may be milking the SAU or town for fees? Non-germane? How do we inform voters about our budgets without disclosing litigation expenses, policies that may predispose us to inordinate litigation, or allowing voters to express general opinions about whether they feel a matter in litigation makes sense for the town?

A year ago, those at informational town meeting heard individuals argue both sides of pending (still pending) property appraisal litigation. What's changed and when did speaking one's mind about town business and taxpayer expense become non-germane?

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."

Get Off Our Duff's Day (Valley News - Op-Ed)

To the Editor:

We hold to certain political myths despite all the evidence to the contrary. There’s the inevitable election cycle hand-wringing that the current election is somehow more negative than elections past. Or the idea that the votes of a plurality of a minority of eligible voters somehow constitutes a “mandate” to govern by the majority.

Nearer to home, much is made of “town meeting” as though it manifests a more pure, meaningful, and participatory method of self-government. However, anyone who regularly attends town meeting can tell you it is often less participatory democracy than a lecture hall informational session: Elected town officials explain to a minority of town voters what was decided in preceding months of budgetary meetings and why they should approve those decisions. The myth of town meeting is not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly, there’s something to be said for having the Selectboard and school board stand before the electorate to account for their respective budgets. However, our praise is misplaced when we focus on town meeting to the neglect of participatory town government.

Take an evening drive through any small Vermont or New Hampshire town and you’ll likely see lights burning in a few windows of town hall. Inside you’ll find local volunteers spending their evening slogging away at the real stuff of self-government, be they planning or conservation commissioners, permitting boards, or members of myriad ad-hoc town committees and commissions trying to work together to do what’s best for their town and fellow townspeople. They work without pay -- often without meaningful budgetary or staff support – taking time from their families and their leisure to make something more of the community they’ve inherited. They do it because they feel they owe something to their community or simply because they want to be involved and belong.

Unfortunately, in a society growing ever more complex, regulatory, and litigious, the disincentives to volunteer participation are also growing. As life feels busier, it’s easy to feel out-of-touch with “what’s going on” in town government. Finding the time to figure out what’s happening, let alone where one might want to put one’s efforts, slips down the list of priorities until it’s not much more than a dull guilty feeling that one isn’t more involved.

Here in Norwich, a small group of us have decided to do something about it. We’ve rented space in the local elementary school for the Saturday before Town Meeting to conduct a “Get Off Your Duff Day.” It is a day where townspeople can meet the people serving on the various volunteer boards in town, learn about what they do and hope to achieve, understand the time commitment involved, and enter the on-going debate of town government. The goal is to make “what’s going on” tangible for those who wish to know and break down the distance between those who are making it happen and those who would like to. We hope this will become an annual tradition in Norwich to accompany Town Meeting and wouldn’t mind at all if the idea spread to neighboring communities.