Sparks flew. Tempers frayed. Words were exchanged.
If you didn’t see it on cable, the short version is that the selectmen came to blows at their last meeting—figuratively, not literally, that is. It happened at the end of a very long meeting, when Leo Blair and Tim Clark let their tempers get the best of them and hurled a few choice words at each other at significant volume.
The few members of the public left in the room sat there in the odd silence that came afterward, squirming with that uncomfortable feeling you get when you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, watching people lose control of their emotions.
Don Green of Oak Hill Road, in fact, called the event “disgraceful,” adding that despite a personal commitment to get involved in town affairs and attend more meetings, he wasn’t sure that he would ever come back to a Board of Selectmen meeting.
“I never want to see that kind of display again,” he said.
Unfortunately, Don left before the next thing happened: apologies, a resolution of sorts, and a reasonably thoughtful discussion about why Blair and Clark got so angry with each other and how they might address their issues more productively in the future. Lucy Wallace, Ron Ricci, and Peter Warren joined in the discussion, too, and the fact that all five selectmen participated in the dialogue and were able to end the meeting on a collegial and mostly cordial note is a credit to all of them and to their ability to rise above the moment and focus on the big picture.
As an onlooker myself, I shared Don’s dismay at the outburst—not only from the standpoint of a voting citizen who wants her elected officials to behave with civility, but also as a resident who grew up here, who moved back so her kids could experience small-town community, and who (perhaps in an overly Pollyanna-esque way) really does think that everyone can find a way to get along.
And then I considered what’s been on the selectmen’s plates of late. A painful budget process that is almost certain to result in a decrease in town services, compounded by the promise of further decreases in state aid. An affordable housing crisis. The looming question of Devens. A struggling town center with septic issues. Oh, and a crippling ice storm that had elected officials and town employees scrambling to ensure that residents stayed warm and safe, were well fed, and got their power back.
The selectmen must be exhausted.
Ask anyone who has served on the Board of Selectmen before, and they will likely tell you that they ran for office because they care about Harvard and wanted to make sure that it stayed the wonderful town that it is. They certainly don’t do it for the money.
These people typically get elected because they have a reputation for being “doers” and a record of actually getting things done. They’re goal-oriented and results-focused. Blair said it himself after tempers cooled on Tuesday night: “What I believe to be logical and sensible approaches to things are difficult to sell sometimes, and I’m not used to that.”
Ironically, democracy often works at counter-purposes to “logical” and “sensible.” Often, the democratic process requires that people examine and discuss issues that would appear to be open-and-shut cases. The top-down, benevolent dictatorship of “because I said so” that you see in, say, my household, doesn’t work. Buy-in is the name of the game, which results in a system that can be inefficient, tortuous, boring, illogical, and even occasionally completely insane, all in the name of making sure that the playing field is fair and every citizen has a voice.
So it’s no surprise that the selectmen are on their last nerves right now. Try taking a to-do list like theirs and imposing the democratic process on it.
Which is not to say that I’m proposing we vote at the next Town Meeting to move to a totalitarian system of government. What makes town government so irritating is also exactly what makes it so gorgeous: it’s direct democracy at its best, with every single resident invested with the right (and the responsibility) to show up, state an opinion, and participate in the discussion.
If you’re going to try something new in 2009, I recommend that you go to just one Board of Selectmen meeting, just so you can admire the process at work in all of its messy glory. And while you’re there, tell the selectmen to hang in there.
