This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Let's Throw the Bums Out . . .

Tim Dodd voted against the 2009 public safety complex and against the 2012 Town Hall/Forbes/Rec center proposals.

It has been fascinating to read and participate in responses to two polls on the Westborough Patch over the last couple of weeks: “Will You Approve Funding for the New Fire Station?” and “What Do You Consider to be a Fair Tax Rate?

It is easy to see that most of the people who have commented are very, very angry about the taxes they have to pay to finance the town and now they are being asked to borrow to replace a badly antiquated fire station.  They are angry at Town Government, they are angry at the Town Manager, they are angry at not being informed about what is going on in the town.  The latest comments revolve around getting rid of the tax-and-spenders who voted for recommending the over-ride vote.

What comes to mind reading these comments are the pitchfork and torch-wielding peasants from “Frankenstein” or the “Mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” people screaming from their apartment windows in “Network”.

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Great idea!! Let’s throw the bums out.

OK – do that. Who is going to take their place?

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[. . . Insert sound of crickets echoing through the woods at night . . .]

As things stand right now, most of the people in elective offices in Westborough got there with little or no competition for their position.  Only three people ran for the two openings on the Board of Selectmen. Only one person ran for the open seat on the Planning Board.

A few years back, when I volunteered to be on the Conservation Commission I had coffee with a member of the Board of Selectmen at that time who told me that the fact is there are only a few hundred people in Westborough who really make the town work, other than the employees:  the handful of people who are in elective office (Selectmen, Planning Board, Library Board for example); volunteers serving on Town Boards (Con Com, Fin Com, Country Club, Council on Aging, Recreation Commission and so on); and the few hundred (usually much less) people who show up to Town Meeting.

It is very sad that something like one percent of this town’s population is at all in tune with or interested in being involved in how the town is governed, but in retrospect, it should not be so surprising given all the things the average person has to juggle these days.  Most of us (me included) would just assume let someone else handle it. 

The fact of the matter is that governing at any level is a very tedious and time consuming process of meetings, hearings, reading and reviews then more meetings, hearings, reading and reviews.  It is hard work and it is not even these people's full time job. Those of us who can make the time to come to Town Meeting, even if they do nothing else, get to see, firsthand, what the process is like. 

No one who runs for elective office or volunteers to serve on a board or committee in Westborough is doing this for personal gain –but of out a sense of caring for the community and obligation to give something back.  No one I know in Town Government does this because it is an ego trip either – especially the Selectmen, who have very long meetings twice a month, appear at many other town boards and committees and have mountains of memos, reports and proposals to get on top of as well.  They do get some compensation for their work, but if you divided by the number of hours they work – believe me, there would be more effective ways for them to supplement their income from a time investment perspective.

I am not going to discourage anyone from running for elective office and I wish more people would.

However, if you do not like the way this town is being run and want to get rid of the current office holders, you can’t throw the bums out if there is no one who wants to take their place.  Don’t want to hear those crickets? Well, then - step up.

Post Script (s):

Remember that the Selectmen only recommended that the Fire Station override measure be brought to Town Meeting.  It was TOWN MEETING that decided to bring this issue before a town-wide referendum – not the Selectmen.  If folks are angry about being asked to borrow more money to replace aging town infrastructure – blame town meeting.  In other words, blame the citizens of this town . . . or, in other words . . . blame yourselves.  If you want, blame me, I voted to bring this measure up for an election.

Oh, town meeting is just a rubber stamp for the Selectmen and Town Manager you might respond.  No, Town Meeting voted down bringing an override referendum for the Town Hall/Forbes/Rec Center project.  If you did not like that decision, you can blame me too, I voted against it as well.

Other little tidbit I dug up:

Tim Dodd voted against the 2009 public safety complex and against the 2012 Town Hall/Forbes/Rec center proposals. He did vote for the Fire Station this year.  Nothing is quite as black and white as it seems.  Preconceived labels don’t always fit as well as one would want.

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