Last week’s Harvard Press contained an advertisement taken out by former and current Finance Committee members supporting Bill Johnson’s candidacy. I found it shocking that members of the Finance Committee thought it acceptable to publicly identify themselves as being opposed to a member of their own committee. How much more divisiveness can town boards think is good for our town?
All members of a committee should be publicly respected for the time they freely give to the committee. We, as residents and town officials, are all in this together; we need to pull together to solve the very challenging financial issues that are facing our town in the near term and the long term. However, to me, the measure of the heart and soul of Harvard is not that a solution is identified and implemented, for we have many bright and talented individuals working on that. The measure of the heart of Harvard is that we do it with civility and collegiality. Back-handed criticism of a fellow board member not only detracts from the measure of the heart of Harvard, it also sends a very unfriendly message to any resident thinking of freely giving their time to serve on a town board. Who would want to join a board that publicly criticizes one of its members?
Sharon McCarthy
East Bare Hill Road
