By STEVEN JUPITER
The headline of this piece may seem a little snarky but I assure you I mean it sincerely. As I observed Monday night’s Selectboard meeting, my overwhelming sense was of good fortune to live someplace where our town officials were capable of rational discussion and problem solving. Too often we see reports of town meetings in other parts of the country that devolve into unhinged shouting matches or where people let political divides make practical solutions impossible.
What sparked this train of thought was the calm, thoughtful way in which the Board addressed a budget snafu that could’ve easily turned into an ugly scene of finger-pointing and blame. In a nutshell, the town put in an order for a new truck in January of 2022 and somehow forgot to include the expense in the budget that was workshopped last fall and approved by voters earlier this month. It was a pretty big mistake—the truck will cost roughly $250,000—but solutions were offered, debated, and adopted without anger or recrimination. Perhaps there were theatrics behind the scenes, but that’s precisely where they need to happen if they happen at all.
Members listened to each other respectfully, accepted parts of proposed solutions and rejected others, and crafted a solution that appeared to fix the problem without creating new ones. Now, a major reason that the Board was able to fix the problem without public drama is that it had made prior fiscal decisions that gave the town some breathing room in pinches like the one it found itself in on Monday night. It wasn’t lost on attendees in the room that we’re in an enviable position to be able to allocate $250,000 without having to cut programs or borrow money. See this issue’s article on Monday’s meeting for more details of the solution.
While I praise the response, I also need to point out that the Board recognized the seriousness of the mistake. But a new protocol was proposed and adopted to prevent similar errors in the future. Mistakes are bound to happen, no matter how attentive we try to be, and what ultimately matters is how we respond. When people respond like adults who actually want to solve a problem, the chances of solving the problem improve exponentially. The Board did what they were elected to do: manage town affairs in a responsible, mature way. In an era of governmental dysfunction in so many places, it was reassuring to see Brandon’s government work.
