After vote, it's time for compromise

By JIM OLDHAM

Published on May 11, 2007

The override has lost and Town Meeting has begun. What to do?

Some would like to see Town Meeting pass a budget that restores some of the worst cuts to services, contingent upon passage of a smaller, one-year override. Others, equally troubled by the cuts, don't believe a one-year override helps, and instead want to wait until next year to try again with a multi-year plan (perhaps, in part, hoping that once voters feel the cuts, they will support an override). Meanwhile, another group really meant it when they said, "No more overrides," and they are willing to support drastic cuts to balance the budget while meeting this goal.

As someone who voted "Yes" but with reservations about the size of the override, I hope Town Meeting will vote to save some teaching positions, preserve the library's excellent English language and citizenship classes, and try to keep the pools open, with a budget that voters could approve through a smaller override. I also hope we pursue some of the good ideas put forth by both sides of the override debate, from seeking new sources of revenue to finding creative ways to do more with less. However, today my concern is as much with how we debate and decide these issues as with the issues themselves.

With only 267 votes between the "No" and the "Yes" results, there is no mandate for one side or the other. Even if the margin had been greater, it would be hard to draw conclusions. Many of us on both sides of the issue were really "stuck in the middle," as described in Thomas Schneeweis' letter to the Bulletin last week. Plenty of "no" voters had much more nuanced positions than was represented by the "No more overrides" signs. Many "Yes" voters shared concerns about some of the assumptions of the "Amherst Plan."

Neither side was well served by its most vocal proponents. Both camps indulged in scare tactics regarding the opposing position and made exaggerated claims for their own proposals. Worse, many on each side seemed unwilling or incapable of empathizing with the fears of voters who opposed them: "If the override passes, I may not be able to keep my home," or "If the override fails, this will significantly change my child's school experience or eliminate services my family depends on." These legitimate concerns are not well-addressed by continued attacks on "vast bureaucracies" or arguments that homeowners can pay their taxes by drawing down the equity on their homes.

It's normal that feelings run high at election time, but the trouble is that it no longer starts and stops with the election. Ever since the charter vote two years ago, there has been a permanent campaign against individual leaders in our town. The reporting of this newspaper is part of the problem: All too often local news is presented in a way to score political points rather than to present the different sides of an issue.

The effective transformation of the Amherst Parent Coalition list-serve from a grass-roots parent group organizing for funding of the schools to a forum for partisan campaigning is another example. One particularly odd theme in the override debate was the accusation that our financial troubles were somehow the fault of current Select Board members, as if we had come to this situation in the last two or three years, or that our difficulties were somehow unique to Amherst.

Debate and disagreement about issues are good, but constant attempts to discredit individuals are destructive and counter-productive. For example, it seems likely that the override would have passed if leaders of the Amherst Plan Coalition had not alienated so many natural supporters during the March elections. The decision of Sustainable Amherst to rank Town Meeting members and issue endorsements of candidates "who support our schools," on the basis of a handful of votes only peripherally related to the schools, led to the bizarre result of Sustainable Amherst supporting Larry Kelley, a vocal and extreme override opponent, while campaigning against many staunch supporters of the schools and public services. The result was that, a month later, the Amherst Plan Coalition was unable to pull together the sort of broad-based coalition that was needed to pass an override.

So what now? We are already seeing the beginnings of a new campaign for Select Board, with elections still almost a year away. There is also talk of a new charter campaign, this time led by fiscal conservatives. So we can spend all our time, energy and creative resources fighting one another, trying to win control of the government for our faction, or we can try to work together to solve the town's problems. Truth is, however, that there is really no option.

No one perspective can win control because there is no single majority in town, just groups that come together around one issue but will part over a different one. The only solution is to focus on the issues, listen to opposing points of view as well as declaiming our own, and be prepared to compromise.

Jim Oldham, a Town Meeting member, lives on East Hadley Road.