A selectboard’s highest mission
In toxic times, what matters most
People who serve on selectboards across the Cape — ditto for town council in Barnstable — are among my heroes and heroines.
They subject themselves to elections that are intimate, demoralizing and embarrassing in defeat, full of elation in victory, inviting intense scrutiny and judgement from scores of people who are not as brave, or public-spirited.
They are paid nothing or next to nothing for deep commitment and hundreds of hours of often-excruciating effort, in and out of the limelight.
Of course there can be self-interest and personal agendas, but mostly they are motivated by a belief in community, public process and higher good, choosing to engage, sacrificing much —including privacy.
They grapple with issues (and personalities) large and small, often with little or no thanks.
They put up with outrageous behavior — accosted at meetings and in supermarkets, attacked in social media.
The people who malign them do so with self-righteous zeal. Many of these attackers use the public forum to promulgate deranged theories and attitudes writ small, expressed with insulting behavior. These bitter, monomaniacal people hide behind the First Amendment’s free-speech protection to ridicule, disrespect, even threaten true stalwarts of grassroots democracy – who, as we recall, were elected.
Civility is not always the gold standard, there are times when it needs to be abandoned, but those times must be a true last resort.
That is not the case today in many town halls, where neighbors attack neighbors.
The Cape-appropriate adage is that fish rots from the head. The rotting state of civility and discourse derives from the example and permission emanating from the head of government one President ago, spread through the likes of baseless election denials.
Despite all this, we need to answer a crucial question:
What is the primary mission for every selectboard member?
Some will say “running the town,” but a volunteer, part-time selectboard should not “run” a town. It should empower good town managers and administrators to do that, and focus on policy. It should make a few great hires who in turn make great hires, then support and shield a town hall team.
Here is the essential selectboard mission:
Usher a flood of volunteers into town government.
Attract great talent in our communities to enter the fray and share experience and perspectives.
Build boards and committees that keep doors open, power policy -- or just chip in now and then.
Create a supportive, nurturing environment that makes it safe and fulfilling to do that.
When brave elected souls are vilified and abused, this becomes nearly impossible. This is how rot sets in, how democracy comes to stink.
I’ve felt for a long time that the best analogy for a healthy selectboard is the human hand:
The five members are five digits.
You need an index finger to point the way.
You need a sturdy, opposable thumb to grip, hold — and signal up or down.
Sometimes you need to slip a wedding ring on the appropriate finger.
Then again, sometimes you need to raise a middle digit.
You’ll want to shake on a deal, wave another one off, make a peace sign but also sometimes a fist.
The best boards don’t duplicate digits. But every board should beckon, and every board member should become a recruiter, a cheerleader for public service.
Every new term, every member should commit to this goal:
Attract five new volunteers to come into town hall, in any capacity.
Is five per member too many? Fine, make it three. Make it one.
As honorable public service is poisoned, good deeds punished, this becomes much harder to do.
But this is the way back.
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Right on the money with this. Even the comments here prove this. Coming from NYS where village governments up had elected mayors, there was often a fiefdom. Massachusetts has fed my soul with its tradition of Town Meetings and initiatives. But I am a former history teacher whose knowledge of what can go wrong is more meaningful to me than to many, or most. Nantucket is a great example of sliding down that hill, and is contemplating doing away with Town Meetings. I’ve family who’ve lived there since the good old days and I know they’ve got serious issues that are so partisan I’m not sure they’ll be resolved for the good of the future . The system of initiatives in MA is so awesome, but there are those who’d do away with this form of direct democracy because they don’t like what’s being called for. I used to teach a course to high school seniors called Participation in Government that was mandatory for graduation. We tried to facilitate young people about to graduate to understand what policy building is, what consensus means, what the true nature of being a citizen in a democracy expects. It was marvelous, until it was it morphed into something pedantic because new teachers coming up had no frame of reference and thought it was too hard, so eventually abandoned . What you said here reminds me of our initial goals. Sadly people shrug their shoulders and acquiesce their power to whomever has the biggest mouth.
Don’t forget School Committees...lots of intensity on varied topics