The Town Board met twice last Tuesday in a new format that’s aimed at improving efficiency and allowing for more public input. Work sessions remain at 1 PM, but the once-per-month regular business meetings will take place at 6 PM on a Tuesday, rather than at 4:30 PM on a Friday.
I don’t usually comment at Town Board meetings other than to ask for clarification. But I spoke up at both Tuesday meetings in response to assertions made by others.
First, I responded to a comment by gadfly Bob Kohn who said during the work session that he was “taking notes” on everything the Town Board was saying so he could demand it all be added to the record when the Comprehensive Plan is updated.
I pointed out that Kohn, as an attorney, should understand that, like contracts, all agreements are preceded by conversations with details that may never make it into the final text. Only what’s eventually reduced to writing matters. Boards and committees engage in what I call Thinking Out Loud in Public. It’s not easy, especially when dealing with uncertainties under the gotcha gaze of folks looking for any chance to sink an initiative.
The Town Board-appointed committees working on issues like updating the Comprehensive Plan or creating a Community Housing Plan will no doubt engage in debates about loads of ideas during the course of their deliberations.
But the only thing that ultimately matters is what ends up in the adopted plans. That’s why it’s important to show up at meetings. Or, if you’re unable to do that, send your input directly to the committees.
At the business meeting, I responded to a push by Friends of Coecles Harbor to set up a meeting with the Town Board to air concerns they’ve been posting in paid newspaper ads that include numerous falsehoods and unfounded assertions.
Having watched as volunteers work through inherently controversial issues, I was provoked by the thought that the Town Board would give special consideration (and meeting time) to groups that choose to publish misleading information rather than engage in the actual ongoing public debates.
Some may say I overstepped a boundary, offering an opinion on a matter I’m covering as a reporter. But unlike the newspaper publisher who is making money off the special interest groups’ paid ads, I live here.
And, like the “Friends of” groups who are attempting — however clumsily — to sway public opinion, I deeply care about this place, too.
For the record, here is what I had to say:
I would ask you to consider what message you’re sending to the community at large if you:
Set up a Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee and assign people to the job of reviewing the Comprehensive Plan. You have multiple opportunities for people — any people, whether they have money to advertise their opinions or not — to come forward and say, “Here’s what I think about (name your topic) — Housing, Natural Resources, Cultural History, or TDRs ‚ whatever is you want to talk about.” There are places for people to talk about these issues.
And then, you set up a Community Housing Fund Advisory Board, and you task that committee with putting together a Community Housing Plan. If I were on the Community Housing Fund Advisory Board and I found out that the Town Board had responded to people who wrote letters that included unfactual information and that they were going to sit down with the Town Board directly to talk about issues that I’m supposed to be working on. When my goal is to gather input?
I don’t believe there is input that is so special that it has to go through the Town Board first. I think everybody’s input is equal. There isn’t anybody that I’ve heard speak who doesn’t have an opportunity to go to a Community Housing [Advisory Fund] Board meeting or to go to a Comprehensive Plan meeting. They’re advertised and available.
You can write volumes to these entities. They will incorporate your comments in their research, and even if it just ends up in an index in the back because other people don’t agree with you, it can be published.
But to the idea that there’s some group of people out there that can advocate loudly enough that the Town Board is now going set aside time from its very busy schedule to say, “We don’t trust our CPAC people, we don’t trust our CH-FAB people to do their jobs that we asked them to do. And we’re going to do this instead,” — I object.
I object on behalf of people who aren’t here to speak for themselves.
