Small town, big issue

I live in a small town in Vermont. Last night I went to Town Meeting, a yearly institution around here when all those interested voters show up at the town hall (or school gym, or wherever) to discuss and vote on the town budget, zoning rules, and other local business. Last night’s meeting was a special one – there was an item on the agenda to take all money issues out of town meeting and put them on the ballot. The advocates of this change insisted that it the ballot is more democratic that the meeting, because people can vote more easily than they can attend. Opponents objected that it would eliminate meaningful debate and our ability to adjust our policies. (This two sentence summary is an injustice to the actual debate.)

I should interject, for those of you who do not live in Vermont, that you have never seen a town meeting on TV, even though a journalist, elected official, or candidate may have called it that. I have seen the expression “national town meeting” used, which is as silly as the expression “national town.” A town meeting is not a candidate listening to random people expressing their opinions. It is the residents of an actual town assembling to discuss issues and make legally binding decisions about the policy, laws, and finances of the town.

I should also note that I recently drove across a wide swath of America, about 2,000 miles, stopping in several major cities across the southeast. The contrast with Vermont was startling. It wasn’t just the absence of real town centers, or the staggering traffic jams, or even the blight of strip mall sprawl. It was the anonymity, the isolation, and the selfish behavior. People drove like rats fighting over the last scrap of food. People blocked out the world with tinted windows and earphones. Nobody seemed to give a damn.

Last night the town hall was packed and overheated. Some people greeted each other with smiles and laughter, while others spoke solemnly and quietly to each other. There was pent up emotion showing in many faces. I was expecting a verbal death match.

The issue that precipitated both the high attendance and the proposed change was our annual donation to the regional library. The library is located in the largest town in the area and serves a handful of towns around it as well. The library people ask for money based proportionally on how many books are checked out by the residents of each town. These requests had been ramping up sharply along with library activity. I missed last year’s meeting, but in a fit of generosity, those attending voted extra money on top of the already increased amount. This fiscal extravagance tipped the scales and brought out the Australian ballot advocates.

In the end, after drawn out and passionate debate, town meeting survived by a two to one margin. Several spending items were then axed, and the library got less than it asked for. Given the emotional levels, people were remarkably polite and patient, even when people rambled on or wandered from the subject. Most speakers were steady, although some choked up, some had nervous and wavering voices, and others were loud and angry. The discussion was punctuated with occasional side comments and laughter.

That sets the scene, but what I am really interested in is something that Alexis de Tocqueville witnessed and wrote about during his travels in 19th century America. That is our sense of community. The word community is one of those sacred words in American culture, but one that has had its meaning twisted and drained over the years. I saw evidence of both its strength and its decline in that sweaty town hall last night.

Community. People need it the way we need carbohydrates and protein. We respect it. We use the word reverently. More and more, we seem to prefer the concept to the actuality. We don’t want to work for it and we don’t want to pay for it. Maybe it is prosperity and mobility. Maybe it is declining prosperity and diminishing free time. Maybe it is the toxic myth of absolute individualism, the narcissistic lullaby that oozes soothingly from our media.

Over and over last night I heard people say things such as “I use the library all the time,” or, “I never use the library.” A couple spoke movingly in support of funding for the local home health service – it had helped them when the husband’s mother was dying. For many people it seemed as if their opinion depended on whether a service helped them personally.

I have no children, and it is extremely doubtful I ever will. Roughly two thirds of my local tax bill pays for schools. Even so, I am not going to ask that only townspeople with children foot the bill. I suppose I could make a pragmatic argument that if Johnny can’t read or Jane can’t do math, then someday they will be a drag on the local economy and social services. I won’t. I pay my school taxes, if not with a smile, then with a sense of satisfaction. Why? Because a community takes care of its children.

We voted money for the local home health agency. My parents live in another part of the state. They will never need home health care around here. I may or may not need it myself someday. That’s not the point. A community takes care of its old people.

I check out a few books from the library now and then. Some people use it daily, some never. This is irrelevant. A library is one of the building blocks of a community, just like the roads, the schools, the fire station, and the water mains. Our pipes need to hold water, but so do our ideas.

We don’t each live alone on a desert island that happens to be part of a town. We are as connected and contiguous as our parcels of land. Even more so, because our lives overlap. Last night I saw that connection in the sometimes-strained civility of an impassioned debate. I saw it in the good humored conversations afterward between those who “won” and those who “lost.” I saw it in the town officials who work what amounts to an extra part time job for almost no pay. I also saw it seeping away in the selfish assumptions of people’s arguments and the occasional knowing manipulation of emotion or process. I saw our community wounded by people’s need to identify themselves not only by name but also by years of residency, either proudly or apologetically, as if that had moral weight. I heard the code words of class distinctions and political factions.

We can discuss and define and redefine the boundary between the rights of the individual and the rights of the community. That discussion, however, establishes that the community exists and has rights and needs of its own, beyond the rights of the individuals within it. Newcomer. Old-timer. White collar, blue collar, no collar. Ultra-conservative to radical. Aging bachelor, young couple, large family. We need each other.

“I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means the inhabitants of the United States almost always manage to combine their own advantage with that of their fellow citizens; my present purpose is to point out the general rule that enables them to do so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue, but they maintain that virtue is useful and prove it every day. The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices, but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book II, Chapter 8

Comments

[steven]

"We need each other"

I agree.

[Tom]

Nice essay. Everything voted on ought to be done by ballot, though, extending voting hours to 7pm, so that people who work can participate. Town meeting isn't terribly democratic if only the retired, unemployed, or self-employed attend. I'd like to attend mine, but I'd have to take one of my few vacation days to do it. Maybe that's worth it, but why should I have to? If town meeting is such a treasured institution in this state, why isn't it mandated that everyone gets the day off? We're not all farmers anymore, just waiting for the ground to dry out before we can till. Without everyone having equal opportunity to participate, the town meeting slips more towards becoming another quaint, feel-good idea we trot out for tourist consumption.

[Heretic]

Tom,

Thanks for the comment.

There is actually a bill going through the VT House right now that would make town meeting attendance legally protected, just like jury duty. Your employer would have to let you go. Our meeting begins at 4:45, so people can stop in on the way home from work. Some towns have gone to Saturday meetings, but this doesn't seem to shift attendance very much.
Some people have suggested a middle way, where people at town meeting would have the ability to amend the budget, and then it would go to a ballot vote. Best of both worlds? I suggested placing a limit on charitable donations as a percentage of the total budget - a boundary on other people's generosity with your money.

H.