Civility in our town hall meetings
I was in Fort Covington last night for a town meeting about the recent dam removal on the Salmon River.
More about the substance of that debate on Monday morning's newscast.
But I wanted to make a comment or two about the tone of last night's meeting.
Local government has always been a rough-and-tumble business. Small town folks take their politics seriously.
The intimate private relationships in our North Country villages can make for complicated and tangled public debates.
But my sense is that the tone and civility of these meetings is on the decline -- and that's both sad and unacceptable.
At last night's meeting, people used profanity, they shouted each other down, and there was a fair amount of mockery.
When someone scored a particularly nasty point, there was sometimes cheering and clapping.
Not everyone joined in. Kudos to the folks who tried to keep the meeting neighborly.
But the uglier aspects of last night's session aren't unique.
I've been to a number of local government meetings in the last year that had a similar tone -- in Peru, for example, and Fort Edward.
For more evidence of North Country locals behaving badly, check out this Youtube video recorded in Cape Vincent.
At a time when town hall meetings on healthcare have turned into confrontational spectacles, this is a trend that we in the North Country should resist.
I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't be passionate. There are times when anger is appropriate.
But in communities where our children share the same classrooms and we see each other in the grocery aisle and the pews of our churches, the angry rhetoric of cable-TV news is a poor fit.
The person you shout down today is the person who will be volunteering on the fire squad that comes to your home tomorrow.
The "enemy" that you mock in public will be the teacher caring for your kid, or the nurse caring for your parents.
Frankly, I think we should be setting the tone for the national debate.
We should prove in our small towns that it's possible to argue and debate and find good solutions to problems, without tearing each other down.
Labels: stlv
posted by Brian Mann @ 9/11/2009 08:01:00 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Good Point Brian, If the report in todays Adirondack Daily Enterprise is accurate you can add the lack of civility shown by the Adirondack Park Agency Chairman Stiles to the list. Thanks to the webcast of these meetings I will be able to see for myself the entire context of the discussion. I will add I have viewed prior meetings and Mr. Stiles attitude towards people he disagrees with is very problematic.
Brian, on the basis of meetings I've covered for the Lake George Mirror and communications to the Mirror, I would tend to agree with you. What strikes me as noteworthy is the disassociation in peoples' minds between their words and the effects of those words. They seen genuinely surprised when others take them as personal insults. Is this new style of democratic deliberation to be attributed to talk radio?
It's so sad that the country has been thrown into this "civil war" where Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives are at each other's throats.
Familiy gatherings have taken on a tone similiar to the town hall meetings described. A 95 year old relative recently wondered what had happened to the family. "Why we've always been Democrats! I can't understand all this nonsense. What's wrong with these people?"
Pretty well summed up my ashtonishment at middle class folk voting against their own interests.
When we were kids the Communists were demonized for their propaganda. Tell me how is this so different? That their rant was pro-government and this is anti-government?
Free speech is being stifled with the screaming matches that are erupting everywhere. Sadly, even in the North Country.
I have witnessed the shouting matches and many evolve from a person's feeling that their point or position is not being appreciated. Much can be done to defuse these situations when you have a person deserving of respect leading the discussion. Whether dealing with constiuents or employees, I have seen that the conversation does not need to get loud if the speaker feels that their representative is listening. I have been involved in many discussions where I was thanked afterward for LISTENING and RESPONDING to the complaint even when the answer was not what the complaintant wanted.
I know it's a corny phrase, but we can "disagree without being disagreeable."
Many people feel that their representatives are not paying attention and are more concerned with the next election than representing their constituents.
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