To the editor:
I wish everyone in Stockbridge could have witnessed the recent meeting of the Tri-Town Committee on regionalization for Stockbridge, Lee and Lenox. The primary focus of the meeting was to tweak a plan to regionalize the administration of the three towns. At the center of the region would be a Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) — a position that would be assumed by the current Lenox Town Manager. The CAO would in turn hire two administrative assistants. Since the CAO’s greatest expertise is in finance, the two assistants would be selected with an eye to expertise in human resources, IT, or some other major area.
The plan was created by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, and at its base is the challenging narrative that declining population, increasing demands on services, tighter budgets, and complex regulations have created for the three towns a crisis so imminent that they must be managed by highly qualified and expensive experts. A key focus of this narrative is to centralize the management of employees in the 3-town region, and thus to increase efficiency, reduce the number of employees, and save money on wages, salaries and benefits. While at first the CAO would work with each town’s current structure of elected and appointed boards and employees, the assumptions behind regional administration will ultimately lead to uniformity. For example, within a few years, Stockbridge’s elected positions of Tax Collector and Treasurer might well be transferred to hired managers, and our police, fire, and DPW employees might well be led by regional leaders.
Zack Blake of the DOR presented the plan with the heavy-handedness that often comes with the state’s regionalization efforts. He made it clear that the idea of any one of the towns rejecting the plan was unacceptable. To emphasize this, he pointed out that a town going it alone ran the very real risk of failing so badly that the state would take it over. He also mentioned the need to act expeditiously, citing pending deadlines and continued mismanagement. Of course, he and his colleagues also used the softer means of cajoling, as they described various types of grants and start-up funds. Cajoling townspeople into saying “yes” was a major focus of the meeting, and at one point, Mr. Blake was asked to add more detail about the state’s role. He said he was hesitant to do so, because sometimes people worry about “Big Brother” in state initiatives. One of the committee members responded by saying he could use all the euphemisms he wanted. The most disturbing part of the DOR’s presentation was the repeated assertion that, by committing to this plan, the Lee, Lenox, and Stockbridge compact would become the flagship for other towns to follow. Clearly, Boston wants this to happen.
Our previous Selectboard made a mistake by joining the tri-town compact. Doing so has involved us with Boston and all the pressure and power that implies, and it has unnecessarily kept us from exploring shared services with other towns, including West Stockbridge and Richmond. Last year, when Selectman Ernest Cardillo began exploring shared services with West Stockbridge, he was publically chastised by one of his colleagues, and told the commitment to Lee and Lenox prohibited him from doing so. This was and is not true.
Most of us in Stockbridge realize that our town is a self-governing community, not a business, and that the “best practices” being pushed by the state are not necessarily best practices for a community. Contrary to the narrative being spun by Mr. Blake and some leaders in our town, there is no imminent crisis facing Stockbridge, and there is no need to panic and drastically alter the management of our town. Despite the contentious nature of our recent discourse, Stockbridge is alive and well, and in a strong position to deal creatively and effectively with any pending problems. Both our elected and appointed officials in the town offices are working efficiently and professionally, and our elected boards and department leaders are looking carefully at pending capital needs. Our Planning Board is working energetically on important present and future issues, and public safety, sewer/water, and highways are in good hands. We have an interim town administrator, who has years of experience, knows the town well, and is eager to learn and grow. And we have a neighboring town administrator with 25 years of experience, who has a deep appreciation of the small-town way of life, and who has offered to assist our town in any way he can.
We should reject the tri-town regional CAO and begin exploring reasonable shared services with all of our neighbors.
Terry Flynn
18 Interlaken Rd.
Stockbridge
