Last night, I attended the official kickoff for State Rep. Jennifer Flanagan’s campaign for state senate. (News coverage is here and here.)
Flanagan’s event last night was very much a corporate affair. The event was held at the Sheraton Conference Center in Leominster, which has the only real business-class meeting facilities in the North County. Most of the men were in jackets and/or ties and many of the women were in business attire as well. The cash bar was open and the waitresses were circulating with toasted raviolis and stuffed mushrooms and all of the other standard hors d’oeuvres you’d find at a wedding reception or a business meet-and-greet. There were a number of important political figures there to lend support, including members of the Leominster city council, Fitchburg Mayor Lisa Wong, retiring Senator Bob Antonioni, District Attorney Joe Early, Jr., and other elected officials.
Like any stereotypical political event, the candidate was preceded to the microphone by the aforementioned dignitaries. Mayor Wong spoke for a couple of minutes, noting that she knew of Flanagan and her work for the district long before she had met the Representative. The District Attorney told the crowd of Flanagan’s tenacity in working the state house to increase funding for his office so that he could hire more prosecutors. Senator Antonioni praised Flanagan for her hard work for the district and expressed confidence in her ability to continue his work for the constituents.
For her part, Flanagan seems a little uncomfortable with the praise and adulation. While a little shyness and humility can be endearing, it can also serve to dilute and discount the impact of the praise. For instance, when she took to the podium, Flanagan thanked the speakers and then gave a little more background on the stories Early and Antonioni shared. Early had mentioned that Flanagan wrote his budget request on a “pink sticky” that she then carried with her to meetings with the DA the house speaker. In Flanagan’s comments, she mentioned that the reason she had a pink sticky was because Early had called late in the morning and that’s all she had to write on. That served to make her look a little less heroic and dampen the impact of Early’s testimony.
Similarly, Flanagan recounted the call she received from Antonioni when he let her know he was retiring. She recounted that he said (and I’m paraphrasing) “This is your chance, you’re running for senate.” That discussion was probably held in the context of discussions Antonioni and Flanagan had held over a long period of time where the two had discussed their plans for the future, but the way the story was related it sounded as if Antonioni had told Flanagan what to do. Again, in an effort to be self-deprecating Flanagan had undermined herself.
(As a piece of unsolicited advice, I’d suggest Flanagan retire that anecdote, or at least stash it away when she comes to Sterling and Lancaster. At our combined Democratic Town Committee last month, the Sterling and Lancaster delegations were not entirely thrilled with Antonioni’s record in relation to the towns, to the point where a member from Lancaster suggested that Flanagan had done more for the town—despite not representing it in the house—than Antonioni had as Lancaster’s senator.)
But once Jenn got the niceties out of the way, she made a passionate and effective plea for support. She recounted discussions she had with house colleagues who tried to talk her out of leaving her house seat for a run at the senate. They told her that she had it easy in the house as one of the few members whose district included just one city, and that she was crazy to give up her seats since she had already ascended to the vice-chairmanship of a house committee in just her second term. Flanagan said that she understood what she was giving up, but that she believed that she had more to offer the region, and that she saw an opportunity to be an advocate for 110,000 more citizens than she currently represents in Leominster.
She mentioned her ties to other towns in the district, specifically mentioning that her family was originally from Sterling and that Flanagan Hill Road is named after her family. She had recounted that story when she spoke to the Democratic Town Committee last month and I wondered if it was just a little pandering, but last night’s crown was definitely a Leominster crowd—I think there may have been just two of us from Sterling—and she left it in.
I was fascinated at how different Flanagan’s kickoff event was when compared to the announcement tour staged by her opponent, Brian Knuuttila. As I recounted last month, Knuuttila’s event in Clinton was held on the steps of town hall on a dank, dreary afternoon in front of a crowd of about 20, with as many or more out-of-town supporters as Clintonians. He spoke for about 15 minutes and then took questions from a couple people in the audience. After the crowd broke up, Knuuttila and a local newspaperman and I chatted for quite a while before the candidate had to pack up. It very much had the feel of an old-time grass-roots campaign. That impression was further solidified last week when Brian was standing alone in front of the Chocksett School last Monday, greeting Sterlingites who were headed in to Town Meeting. In contrast, Flanagan’s event had all the trappings of incumbency.
One of the reasons I decided to attend Flanagan’s event was the opportunity to meet some people and network a little bit. When I worked as a college basketball coach I had a reputation of being somewhat of a schmoozer, but that quality was based on being in a position of power. It’s easy to work a room or visit with a recruit’s family when you are offering something that someone else wants (admission to college, a spot on the team, a scholarship, etc.). But I find that I have a hard time “schmoozing up.” It’s difficult for me to walk up to an elected official or business executive and strike up a conversation. Going to an event like this and being essentially alone is good because it forces me to either strike up a conversation or sit alone on the sidelines eating toasted raviolis (not that there is anything wrong with that).
I had the chance to talk to a few of the elected officials in attendance. I got to catch up with Leominster city councilor Bob Salvatelli, who I’ve known for a long time from his days as a basketball referee and my days as a coach. I talked for a few minutes with State Committeewoman and Register of Deeds Kathy Daignault about an upcoming rally that the party will be holding in Leominster. I also had a nice conversation with District Attorney Early about some of the changes he’s made at the DA's office since his election in 2006. He was telling me about his work with the Molly Bish Center and his efforts to fight against cyber-bullying and intimidation in schools. I told Early that for years the only Republican I ever voted for was whoever ran against John Conte and that I was happy to see the changes he’s made. That probably came across as a total kiss-up, but it was absolutely true.
I introduced myself to Senator Antonioni and spoke with him briefly (Antonioni has perfected the neutral introduction. When I told him who I was, he nodded and said “yes” in a way that would have sufficed if he had met me before, but was also appropriate for meeting someone for the first time. Politicians need this skill because they meet so many constituents that there is no way to remember them all, even though the constituent probably assumes that the senator would remember an encounter). After I left the event, I was kicking myself for not taking the opportunity to lobby Antonioni to support Representative Naughton’s house budget earmark for the Wekepeke when the budget goes to the joint conference committee. I’ve got to remember when I have someone’s ear not to be shy about talking into it.
My only real disappointment was not getting to meet Mayor Wong. I have followed her rise to the Mayor's office through the news and was hoping to meet and congratulate her, but she had to leave the event before the speeches were over.
Now that I have seen both candidates up close and in their element, I have a decision to make. While I have committed to remaining neutral until after the Sterling Democratic Town Committee’s candidates’ forum on June 23, I will probably jump into the water with one candidate or the other after the event. I’ve decided that I want to be involved in the campaign in some capacity; it’s just a matter of deciding how and with whom.
Like many evenings, I had settled in to watch something I had recorded from the National Geographic Channel (I have this inexplicable fascination with plane crash investigations...I think I've seen every episode of "Air Emergency" and "Seconds from Disaster"). I usually don't worry about switching over to the Red Sox until 9:30 or so, since they always seem to go three-and-a-half hours and I figure I can catch the last three innings. So tonight, I switch over to find the Sox are up 7-0 with two outs and a 1-and-2 count on the batter...
and Jon Lester threw one more pitch, completing his no-hitter. Good thing I didn't check the Spurs-Hornets score before switching to the Sox.
Either the Telegram and Gazette has made a mistake, is trying to play a cruel joke on the people of Sterling, or someone has made the mother of all motions to reconsider. According to today's online version, we're all getting back together Monday for Town Meeting:
Friday, May 16, 2008
Town meeting to act on $18.6M budget Wachusett articles also on warrant
By Sandy Meindersma CORRESPONDENT
STERLING— Voters will be asked to spend $18.6 million for municipal and school budgets as part of the 61-article annual town meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday.
One nine-plus hour Town Meeting is enough, thank you.
Town Meeting: No to WRSD spending, but will it matter?
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Sterling’s town meeting, which began at 6:30 Monday evening, finally ended Tuesday about 20 minutes before it would have been Wednesday, much to the relief of the 100 or so exhausted townspeople who took over nine hours to slog through 77 articles across two warrants. The decision that was potentially the most important was the town meeting’s vote to reject one of the proposed amendments to the Wachusett regional School District Agreement. From Article 61:
To see if the Town will vote to approve the amendment of Section 16. CAPITAL EXPENDITURES FROM SURPLUS of the Amended Wachusett Regional School District Agreement, as recommended and approved by vote of the Regional District School Committee on January 28, 2008, or act or do anything relative thereto....
Summary: The proposed amendment deletes the words "Regional District School" where they precede the word "Committee", deletes the clause after "Section 16" which reads: "not to exceed $250,000 in any fiscal year or for any single project, and", and by inserting the fraction (2/3) after the words "two thirds", a copy of the proposed Amendment is on file with the Town Clerk in a report entitled "Wachusett Regional School District Committee Recommendations for Changes to Regional Agreement Annual Town Meetings 2008."
The article was one of five articles regarding changes to the district agreement. All of them appear to essentially be an effort to modernize the language in the agreement. The other four articles were easily approved, but this article is a little different. In addition to modernizing the language, the amendment would strike the provision which requires the school committee to get approval from member towns to spend more than $250,000 from the district’s surplus funds. The town’s Finance Committee recommended against passage because removing that language would give the school district carte blanche to spend whatever they please from the surplus without any oversight. The article failed by a rather large margin.
The townspeople at the meeting probably believed, as I did, that we had killed the amendment because we had voted it down, but it appears the amendment could still pass over Sterling’s objections. During discussion of the article, I asked the members of the School Committee if all five towns in the district had to approve a change in the agreement in order for it to pass or it the rules only required three or four towns to approve. I and the rest of the town meeting were assured that all five towns needed to approve any changes. Unfortunately, that is incorrect:
This Agreement may be amended by recommendation of the Regional District School Committee and approval of member towns of the District by majority vote at an annual or special town meeting provided that not more than one town disagrees.
So while we thought that the amendment was dead, in reality it only takes four of five towns to approve the amendment in order for it to take effect. Paxton and Princeton have approved the amendment; Holden and Rutland have yet to hold their town meetings. If either Holden or Rutland rejects the change, it will not pass. If both approve, then the amendment will take hold regardless of Sterling’s vote.
(Just to be clear that I am not accusing the members of the school committee of any sort of deception here. I honestly think that they probably hadn’t thought about it before the question was asked and believed that a unanimous vote was necessary. The more I participate in government--town meeting, Democratic Town Committee, etc.--the more I am coming to the conclusion that if one is going to be involved and hopes to be make the most informed decisions possible, he or she needs to be prepared. While it would have been nice to get the right answer when I asked the question, I could have looked it up before the meeting or brought a copy of the charter with me. As it is, the information on whether or not five or four towns is needed to pass an amendment wouldn’t have changed the vote, but it would have helped voters understand the impact—or lack of impact—of their decision.)
I breezed into last night’s town meeting at 7:00 on the dot, figuring that by the time everyone got signed in and seated we’d be ready to start in on the 62 articles up for resolution. I didn’t plan on attending the Special Town Meeting at 6:30 since it essentially was just to clean up any loose ends from the current fiscal year and appropriate whatever leftover funds we had to necessary accounts. Nothing to it, really.
Or, maybe not. It took us 2 hours and 55 minutes to get through what I thought would be 15 rubber-stamp decisions. The Regular Town Meeting did not begin until 9:25, and we only got through nine of the articles before adjourning at 11:10. So we’re back again tonight for the remaining 53 items.
What took so long? For one, the town debated the question of whether or not to give merit pay increases for the last six months of 2008. The increases would only have been for those workers who received favorable reviews from their superiors. The merit raise would have been 3%, and the town meeting was being asked to appropriate the $25,000 necessary to pay for the raises. After well over an hour of discussion, the motion was defeated by a relatively close vote.
I was stunned. To me, it seemed like this was an easy thing to do. Take $25,000 of money that is left over from FY08 revenues and use it to fund merit pay increases for town workers who have earned it.
But the Board of Selectmen and the Finance Committee did not do a very good job explaining the article. Instead of framing it in small terms (for instance, a DPW worker making $14.00 would get an increase to $14.42 per hour, or less than $17 per week), the article was described as a 3% increase which was payable over the last six months of the fiscal year so it was really only a 1.5% increase as far as the town was concerned since they were only paying it out over the last half of FY08. That begged the question from many townspeople of whether the increase was really 6% since there is an automatic 3% step increase at the start of FY09. The response from Finance was that it was really just a 4.5% increase during calendar year ’08 since it was just 1.5% in January and 3% in July. But since people get paid weekly and not by the fiscal year, isn’t it really 3% now and 3% later so town workers are really getting a 6% raise…and around and around for over an hour.
Understandably, many in the audience were confused. Perhaps someone could have stood up and made the point that we were looking to spend a very small sum of money—about the cost of a family car—so that the guys who dig ditches and keep our water flowing and electricity running could get paid another $17 per week (and I do not exempt myself from that criticism. I could have made the point and did not). But instead, we squabbled over whether or not the increase was 1.5% or 3% or 4.5% or 6%.
The evening was further lengthened by about a half hour when we got to the final article of the Special Town Meeting and organizers realized that the paper ballots required for this particular question had not been distributed when we signed in, so the gymnasium was cleared and all 175 or so of us had to line up and sign in once again to get our ballots.
The most interesting dynamic to part one of the miniseries that has become Town Meeting was the significant level of distrust many townspeople and the personnel board have toward the Board of Selectmen. For reasons I don’t understand, the personnel board opposed both the merit pay raise and the creation of a part-time Human Resources position, which was defeated around 11:05 last night. It seems to me that the personnel board would be working on behalf of workers who would benefit from both merit pay increases and a professional dedicated to HR issues, but the personnel board opposed both. Further, there was a general thread among many of those who spoke that “something else is going on” with the Selectmen and that they were somehow “trying to sneak one in” with the changes they hoped to make in the personnel area.
I haven’t seen it, but I guess I’ll get another four or more hours of evidence tonight.
Town Meeting: How far should we extend the "Right to Farm?"
Monday, May 12, 2008
Town meeting is tonight. Responsible citizens like me (pat, pat) will head on down to the school at 7:00 and spend four or so hours on the hard bleachers slogging through 62 articles. How a town with an otherwise sleepy political landscape can manage to put 62 articles on the warrant is beyond me (fellow sleepy political town Lancaster had only 20 articles when they met last week, for instance). As I combed through the pile of appropriations for this project or that, one article stands out.
The most interesting is the proposal that Sterling become a “Right to Farm” community. Right to Farm towns generally make it easier for local farmers by making it harder for abutters to sue them if they don’t like the odor, dust, loud machines, and other aesthetic byproducts of farming. Sterling has had a long history of family farming and still hosts a number of orchards, stables, and other farms.
In theory, I think this is a good idea, although not everybody agrees. But there is one section of the bylaw that I strongly object to. The law provides that all new home buyers receive a written notification of the Right to Farm provisions and that all landowners also receive the notice yearly. The notification states (emphasis mine):
It is the policy of this community to conserve, protect and encourage the maintenance and improvement of agricultural land for the production of food, and other agricultural products, and also for its natural and ecological value. This disclosure notification is to inform buyers or occupants that the property they are about to acquire or occupy lies within a town where farming activities occur. Such farming activities may include, but are not limited to, activities that cause noise, dust and odors. Buyers or occupants are also informed that the location of property within the Town may be impacted by commercial agricultural operations including the ability to access water services for such property under certain circumstances.
In other words, good luck if your well is fouled with manure or fertilizers, or runs dry because a farm in the aquifer uses more water than the aquifer can replenish. Considering the recent discussions Sterling has been having in town about water rights, and the widespread opposition to Clinton’s Wekepeke proposal at least in part on the basis of its potential to affect other wells in the aquifer, this clause needs to be struck from the proposed bylaw in order for me to support it. The ability to access clean water is just as important when the threat is from a farm as it is if the threat is from a big retail corporation. To leave this clause in the bylaw would be hypocritcal.
While the water clause is in the sample bylaw provided by the state Department of Agricultural resources, manytownshaveomitted it from their bylaws. Sterling should do the same.
The other issue I have with the notification is that the annual notice to residents “shall be provided by the Town to landowners each fiscal year by mail.” Printing and mailing 5,000 or so notices seems to me to be an unnecessary expense. Sterling should provide the notice in a publication that is already printed--such as the Annual Report--and on its Web site, saving the extra cost.
Five years ago, Kilbourn Hill--a perfectly good hill--became Dexter Drumlin. The Trustees of Reservations decided that after decades (centuries, perhaps) of just being a hill, the place where Lancastrians go to sled, walk, jog, watch the sun rise and set, and just generally be was now a drumlin.
Did it graduate? Earn a higher rank? Achieve a new social status? Has the word "hill" become offensive to some group? Who changes the name of a local landmark after all this time? Honestly, who names a hill a drumlin?
Other than the title, this blog has nothing to do with drumlins. It may have to do with hiking, or politics, or high school basketball, or whatever I'm thinking about at a given moment, but it probably won't have a thing to do with drumlins. If you got here by googling the word "drumlin," you're welcome to stay--but sorry, no drumlins.
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