Town Meeting: Civic or Political?

Town Meeting:  Civic or Political?

It’s funny how two words, civic and political, with virtually identical roots ( in Latin and Greek) have seen their implications separate over the centuries.  Once they both meant being active in the affairs of the community.  Now they have come to have subtle differences.  To be civic is to serve disinterestedly; to be civic-minded is to put the interests of the community before one’s own.  To be political is to want to win; to be engaged in shaping acts of government in a particular direction or in accord with a political sentiment one shares.

Civic activity has come to seem higher, nobler, more virtuous, striving for the best, while political activity is down-and-dirty, compromising, horse-trading, settling for the good-enough. Ordinarily, “we” are civic-minded, while “they” are political.  “We” have the interests of the community at heart, while “they” are serving a special interest or set of resentments.  “We” know what’s best for the town; “they” are engaging in social engineering.

In the current long-lasting debate about Town Meeting, defenders of that institution speak as though it were wrapped in civic duty, while a town council would easily succumb to partisanship and deal-making.    Partisans of the mayor/council form of government, of course, turn this on its head and claim civic virtue for their imagined sober-minded councilors, while pointing to the conniving within town meeting.

But one person’s conniving is another person’s coalition-building.  For one person, politics is a dirty word; for another it is the essence of democracy.  Citizens treat political life just as they treat social life.  They join together in quasi-permanent organizations like political parties and in situational coalitions around specific issues.  There is no difference between civic and political.

In Amherst, and most towns with a town meeting/select board form of government, candidates run for office unaffiliated to any political party.  In cities with a mayor/council form of government, candidates often run with labels affiliating them with a party or as an independent.  Amherst certainly has political parties active in state and national politics, but they stay clear of local politics.  Personally, I like this absence of labels in local politics, but it does mean that in town meeting coalition-building becomes especially important and increasingly noticeable.

Some of the coalitions in town meeting mirror state and national politics.  One continuum has “less spending” at one end and “more services” at the other.  Another continuum has “economic development” at one end and “open space” at the other.  Still another has “general support of town government” at one end and “general suspicion of town government” at the other.  Of course I am painting with too broad a brush; there are a great many shadings and nuances, and attitudes can shift from one issue to the next.

Town Meeting is the ideal arena for these coalitions and attitudes to confront each other.  It has specific and quite rigid rules of procedure and decorum.  When a majority of members feel that a debate has gone on long enough it stops.  Town Meeting is the place where civic-mindedness and politics meet.  We need places like that.

What would happen if we didn’t have town meeting?  For a while, Amherst would continue to be a place where “only the h is silent.”  But gradually, I suspect, Amherst residents would become less political - would leave politics to the pros, like the councilors we elect and pay.  This would change the character of our town.  Decisions about the quality of life in Amherst would be made by five or six councilors,  not 240 residents and neighbors.  Would these councilors exemplify the melding of political action with civic-mindedness?  I will write about this in a subsequent commentary.