(Warning): Altho I respect and deal with details as necessary, what I bring to the Selectboard is an understanding of the foundations of economics, of communities, of governments, of human interactions. I bring a voice of reason, of broad and deep education and knowledge, and a life of very diverse pursuits and experiences. I try to be philosophical, thoughtful, wide-open and articulate. I listen and learn, grow and change. If you’re seeking meaningless soundbites and magic bullets you’re looking in the wrong place. I will define my terms, explain my actions and be held accountable for the consequences.
In a nearby posting you will find a very complete platform enunciated by candidate Audrey Garfield. It is thorough, powerful and precise. I endorse almost all of it. Together we will strengthen accountability and bring a much greater awareness of the issues and problems in our town. They are a lot deeper than our leadership has had the courage to admit, let alone face. Allow me to complement what Audrey is saying with the following.
One of the most striking realities that I have had to come to grips with in my year on the Selectboard is the astonishing lack of facts and information about the basic elements of our economic and social situation. Worse yet has been my colleagues’ determination to not know. One of my first requests was to comply with our town plan and complete the enumerated measurable indicators that would tell us about wage levels, affordable housing, health care etc. I could not get even a second on that motion. Without this information the citizens have no means by which to judge the effectiveness on their leadership.
On affordable housing: The number of affordable housing units required is determined by the number of people whose incomes require it. A thousand units of affordable housing in our town is not enough if two thousand families are in need.
As an intimate member of this community with an ear to the ground I hear the cries daily of rents that cannot be paid, mortgages that cannot be met and crushing taxes on many fortunate enough to own their homes outright. I hear of people moving away, or filling every room with boarders, Section 8 subsidies being cut, doubling up, couch surfing and homelessness. We need not have such stories.
Our town has the power to provide decent housing for everyone. We have a large array of means to reduce the cost of creating affordable housing. The strategy of inclusionary housing that Audrey Garfield speaks of is but one. Using Community Development funds to leverage the building of our own housing is another. The restructuring of fees and creating a mulititude of incentives are yet another. We need not be helpless.
On the budget: Our budgets have been balanced for decades. In fact, state law requires that it is. And it will be balanced again this year. And the tax rate, this year, will probably not be effected. We will however be working with a budget that has absolutely no forgiveness. The $94,000 in the surplus account that was improperly spent will be replaced. The other $481,000 that was in the surplus two years ago was purposefully spent by the citizens, mostly to reduce taxes last year. The colossal $230,000 bookkeeping error that was not caught by the Finance Dept, the Town Manager’s office, the auditors, the Matrix study, the Selectboard or any of our famous citizen budget hawks has been dealt with by a) squeezing the budget til it screamed and b) adopting a long list of procedural and reporting changes that will prevent a recurrence.
But the real budget issue still remains repressed. In the next 50 years the town is going to need about $100,000,000 in infrastructure replacement and restoration. Schools, water and sewer systems, municipal buildings, bridges and the like. This is where long range planning comes in. Or should come in if it were possible to get a second on a motion to force my colleagues to even talk about it. Selectboard member Worden once told me that you can’t do long range planning because you can’t predict the future. Is that like not saving for retirement because you don’t know how long you will live? But there is a more fundamental reason one might have for choosing to dismiss planning. A plan that required compliance would puts the future into the hands of those, the citizens, who wrote it. Not having or not following a plan keeps the power of choosing in the hands of those in office.
On employment: The single largest profession in Vermont now is cashier. That’s what you get in a state (or town) whose economic foundation is retail trade. This is a doomed economy. A strong economy has at least two characteristics. It produces wealth and does so in a diversified manner. The retail sector is simply trading with no net gain. There is no surplus produced. If an economy is to survive it must have a large part of its economy not only in production but producing things that people need. People need food. They need clothing. Houses, tools and such things. Examine an economy producing necessary and durable goods and you find an economy with good jobs.
Examine an economy based on superfluities and you find an economy of poverty. But we have a problem here in Brattleboro shared with almost every location in this country.
The good jobs are going or have already gone overseas.
The Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) has been trying for fifty years to bring good jobs here. But the graph shows only a steady downward drift for the entire span. There’s nothing out there to attract. But what Brattleboro can do is create jobs. It can begin to use its natural resources to produce something useful. We have plenty of timberland. We have plenty of ag land. Those resources alone could be the source of hundreds of good jobs. We can tap into small energy production. We have to do these things. If we don’t we are going to begin experiencing increasingly severe poverty.
Health care: About half of our health care costs are lost in administrative functions. If we could put every citizen into one plan we would see huge reductions in cost. On the other hand, if we put the entire state into one plan the reductions would be even greater.
Brattleboro could have a lot of clout in Montpelier if it chose to use it. For reasons unknown my colleagues refuse. Even after 87% of our citizen’s directed the Selectboard to strongly pursue universal health care they steadfastly sit on their hands. We can not afford to be complacent. Every citizen must have complete health care.
Taxes: Taxes are based upon property value. We could effectively reduce taxes by lowering property value. Another way to reduce taxes is to reduce services. What services? Yet another way to reduce taxes is to increase revenue. There are a couple of local option taxes on rooms and meals and a small sales tax that could help a little. We need to have a Selectboard willing to thoroughly study all of these options. And, yes, we can shave a tad off by running the town government more efficiently but even if we were at 100% efficiency the savings would be minimal.
Reducing an annual $4,000 tax bill to $3,960 ($40 is the amount, theoretically, that could have been applied to taxes rather than overspending the budget) wouldn’t do much to solve the problems of many people.
Democracy: Big problems here. One of the major elements of democracy is access to information. There are now important new reporting requirements for the Town Manager. This will help. And a long discussion is certainly needed to determine the penalties for not disclosing information. We need a Selectboard that has the courage to have that discussion. We don’t have that yet. Actually it would be a big help if all Selectboard members received a bit of education in the fundamentals of democracy.
We must discuss the definition of community, create actions that will strengthen its
characteristics and take stock each year of how we have improved or not.
We must think of our community as a whole and not just a collection of parts.
Brattleboro needs producers as much as it needs business as much as it needs schools and government and health care and artistic endeavor. If there is anything vital it is really food and shelter, clean water and air.
I see tomorrow as one small piece of the next thousand years. I have vision and faith.