Great Barrington— In the age of instant information, small town New England government can seem downright old-fashioned, backward, and frustrating, particularly for those of us who don’t participate in its workings.
At least, that was the takeaway from Wednesday (April 22) night’s Community Conversation at Berkshire South Regional Community Center, an event facilitated by DiaPraxis founder Rosa Zubizarreta, who soothingly navigated the Great Barrington complaint storm by transmuting complaints into ideas. All the ideas will be recorded and emailed to the 40 or so participants who attended.
The town organized the event to find ways to get participation “as we move forward into the next fiscal year,” said Selectboard Chair Deborah Phillips, who initiated the event. Phillips said the conversation was also necessary to bring the community together for a constructive brainstorm after a damaging year or two of heated controversy and rejection over two separate votes to renovate the aging 50-year-old Monument Mountain Regional High School.
“Over the past year I’ve had a sense of growing mistrust among different small groups…and among people in town government, and things that are simply differences in opinions have grown into personal vendettas and accusations and ugliness that just doesn’t feel right to me,” Phillips noted.
“But our differences of opinion should help us reach farther and dig deeper…to further all of our goals,” she added, and said the town’s Master Plan, spearheaded by Town Planner Christopher Rembold, should be used as a continued reference for moving forward. The plan, which establishes an overall vision and breaks it down into detail, was created by 15-plus volunteer residents over the course of three years. The plan is on the town’s website, here.
“It is about how we achieve and sustain a quality of life,” Phillips said. “That we feel a sense of ownership…that we all feel valued…”
Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin gave out materials detailing town committees, departments and timelines, and the timing process for decision-making, particularly as it relates to having revenue and spending it. Zubizarreta noted that she had worked with Phillips and Tabakin to try to find “structural reasons” for the community “polarization,” and found that timing and process issues were partly to blame. As an example, she said that town committees usually begin a new cycle of work after town meeting in May, then bring proposals to the next town meeting. Then, she said, “people come to town meeting wanting to tweak what people have been working on for a full year.”
Lack of participation can be troublesome in other ways. Zubizarreta said that Phillips had told her of an exchange with a resident, in which the resident was frustrated by Selectboard housekeeping at meetings because she was unaware that the public meeting law forbids town committees from engaging privately.
Participants soon got down to the small-group work known as the “World Café” format, which uses “Café Etiquette” to get people in groups of four to listen to each other. The room was set with card tables covered with butcher paper, a cup of crayons and a plate of grapes and candy on each.
The question: “How can we support and encourage constructive participation in our community self-governance process?”
Mid-way through the conversation, people were instructed by Zubizarreta to switch to another table, one at a time, then three at a time. Everyone appeared relieved at the opportunity to talk. At the ring of a bell, it was time to harvest ideas from the sessions.
Phillips said she wondered how to get more of the increasing, yet underrepresented, Latino population involved in town affairs.
One young woman said that she would like to see more young people involved in town government. Vivian Orlowski said internships were a great way for young people to get involved and learn how things work. Nick Stanton said he would like to see town officials teach students at Monument High how town government works. “We need to start early,” he said.
Berkshire Hills Regional School District Superintendent Peter Dillon decried the low, 10-percent town meeting turnout rates, and wondered how to get more engagement there.
Anthony Dapolito said he thought residents might have better representation on important town issues if there were a referendum procedure. He suggested creating a way — maybe online — that would show the Selectboard what the majority opinion of residents is on a major issue.
Chris Rembold reminded everyone that the town was incorporated with a town meeting form of government.
Several residents said they wanted to make sure the town’s bylaws support what people want. Zubizarreta translated that concept into being “proactive about ‘what are the things we might want to protect ourselves from.’ ”
Finance Committee Chair Sharon Gregory said the Master Plan should have an “interactive priority system,” and quantify how choices are made about what the town is choosing to pay for, and how much it is willing to pay. She suggested possibly looking at a 5-year planning process.
Then came some grousing about the town’s website, its communication with residents about meetings, and failures of its news email system. Selectboard member Ed Abrahams pointed out that while “there are lots of problems with the website,” meetings are always posted on the website calendar and often with more advance notice than the state law-required 48 hours.
The town has an official Facebook page, as do the Planning Department, and the Fire and Police Departments.
Tabakin observed that the Technology Committee has only one member. “We have no one working in communications, nor do we have a budget to redo the webpage,” she said. “These things don’t happen magically.”
“If it is a need for the whole town,” said Krisha Andrews, “maybe it needs to be in the budget.”
It all made board member Abrahams grumpy. “Who wants to be the one to make a motion at town meeting to allocate $60,000 to hire a public relations person?” he later told The Edge.
“Every suggestion was ‘what should the town do to get people more involved’, ” he said. “We should do a better job with our website, which is clunky, but it’s easier to know what’s going on than ever before. It’s practically on a silver platter.”
Abrahams said the thrust of the Community Conversation seemed to be that “it’s the town’s responsibility to get the citizens involved, not the citizens responsibility to be involved.”
“Not one person last night said, ‘you know, I really should start going to meetings.’”
Abrahams called the town a “hyper-democracy,” where the Selectboard has to bring every spending decision to the voters at town meeting.
But communication in this “hyper-democracy” is a two way street, according to Selectboard member Dan Bailly, who, at the meeting, said that his “phone number is listed,” along with those of all the other board members. “How many calls do I get every week: zero.”
