Debate on Town Meeting/Select Board versus mayor/council carries forth at ARHS

By Nick Grabbe

Published on November 30, 2007

Last week, the 2003-05 debates over Amherst's form of government were reborn at Amherst Regional High School. Students in the "Argumentation and Debate" class chose up sides on Town Meeting/Select Board vs. town council/mayor and questioned four adult "witnesses," myself among them.

During the public discussion of Amherst's proposed new charter, I was neutral in my roles as a reporter and as coordinator of the letters on this page of the Bulletin. When asked my opinion, I said I agreed with people on both sides who thought the charter question was a difficult, complex choice and disagreed with those who thought it was an easy one.

Some Amherst residents still maintain that Town Meeting is inefficient and unrepresentative and should be abolished. And the close votes of 2003 and 2005 showed a town as divided as the nation in 2000. Indeed, it sometimes seems that the pro- and anti-charter camps function like political parties.

But the state makes the process of changing forms of government very cumbersome. After two charter commissions and three failed votes over the past 15 years, I don't think Amherst has the stomach to revisit the issue anytime soon.

Still, I was pleased to see ARHS students grapple with the details of governmental forms and to answer their questions last week. They had done their homework, and even had contacted the Easthampton mayor to provide testimony that a different system can control costs better and deliver services more efficiently.

It was a treat to watch student Lily Geraty cross-examine Town Manager Larry Shaffer about how he runs the town but wasn't elected to office. And to hear Shaffer say that if you need knee surgery, you want the most experienced doctor and not the one who's gotten the most votes.

The other "witnesses" were Bryan Harvey, chairman of the second Charter Commission, and Gerry Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts and a charter opponent.

Shaffer said the Select Board is "vestigial," and after the debate predicted that someday Amherst will change its form of government. He called Town Meeting "a traditional form of government that harkens back to a long New England tradition."

He declined to offer an opinion on what form of government represents the people better. But he did say that while most managers adhere to a strict code of ethics, mayors have been indicted or gone to prison in Chicopee, Springfield, and Waterbury and Bridgeport, Conn.

"I'm not a politician," Shaffer said. "I don't count on you to vote for me. My standards are improved efficiency of services. I don't worry about whether people like me or if I kissed enough babies or showed up at enough barbecues."

Harvey ticked off a list of problems with Town Meeting, though he is a member. He said it has difficulty reaching closure on issues, such as the parking garage, and its 240 members include only 22 parents of school-age children, partly because of the time commitment. Only 62 communities in the nation still have a representative Town Meeting form of government, he said.

It's of tremendous value for the 200 or so participants but disenfranchises thousands of other citizens, Harvey said.

When student David Gamliel asked him about voters who democratically elected to keep Town Meeting, he said that just less than half of them voted yes.

"We did not make the change, but we haven't resolved the issue either," he said. "We're in a twilight area."

Friedman said he did not buy the argument that a mayor and council would do a better job of broadening the tax base through economic development.

"Business doesn't want to be here unless you want to sell pizza to college students," he said.

He also didn't agree that a paid council and mayor would be better than a volunteer Town Meeting and Select Board. He noted that American system of voluntary blood donation works better than England's paid system.

A mayor and council might look more at the interests of the town as a whole than those of a neighborhood, Friedman said. But he said that "democracy depends on participation, and if people give up on it, they lose a sense they can handle themselves as members of a democracy."

In the charter debate, voters had to decide between two imperfect systems, he said. "Life is like that, even in Amherst," he said.

Nick Grabbe covers Amherst for the Bulletin and the Daily Hampshire Gazette. He can be reached at ngrabbe@gazettenet.com.