WILLIAMSVILLE — At Newfane's Town Meeting this year, every one of the Selectboard's requests for funding, from employee salaries to town highways, passed.
But voters were not able to take any binding action on three of the most pressing issues facing the town at this moment: Reimbursement from FEMA for flood damage from Irene; the siting of cell towers within our community, and our school budgets, which comprise a great deal more of our tax dollars than town government or road maintenance.
In all three of these instances, we have little, dwindling, or no local control.
FEMA is a program that could make anyone question the value of Big Government. Administered at the federal level according to federal guidelines, it is burdened by the kind of bureaucracy that, according to Select Board Chair Jon Mack, is possibly worse even than anything Kafka imagined in The Trial.
This same bureaucracy renders FEMA incapable of providing the relief it is meant to in any reasonable manner.
And Mack would know: he and members of the Newfane Selectboard have devoted countless volunteer hours trying to understand and comply with FEMA's regulations, every one of which is interpreted differently, depending on which FEMA officer is consulted.
The result? More than a year and a half after the storm, Newfane still has missing and damaged bridges, culverts, and roads.
FEMA personnel continue collecting their salaries at taxpayer expense, but they are not able to help the taxpayers themselves.
Like most small towns in Vermont, a cadre of dedicated volunteers serves on the Selectboard, and our capable road crew keeps our roads in good repair.
If only these people were allowed to make the necessary decisions and execute the repairs to our storm-ravaged bridges and roads, using their Yankee ingenuity and thrift, the jobs would be done, on time and under budget.
But that would require - or at least incorporate - a level of local control that's missing from the current FEMA model.
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More recently, in the siting of privately owned telecommunications towers, citizens in Newfane learned that the state legislature has taken local control from local citizens and granted it to the Public Service Board, giving the PSB the authority to disregard local zoning, local planning, and local sentiment.
The result is that legislators in Montpelier have put private industry's right to profit ahead of the desires and welfare of those who elected them to office.
Finally, we are at risk of losing what little control we have over our local schools in the name of economies of scale.
While there are many benefits to consolidation, including important educational opportunities that are simply impossible in a smaller school, there is also a risk of further erosion of public involvement and widespread support for public education when the schools themselves are no longer part of town government.
An educated electorate is the cornerstone of democracy; if education loses public support, democracy itself is at risk.
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While the erosion of local control continues to occur, it doesn't have to undermine citizens' authority the way Irene undercut our roads and bridges.
But we have to act - slowly.
Just as Slow Food has helped people rediscover the pleasures of unprocessed food and proponents of Slow Medicine emphasize the need for human touch in health care, so there is a movement afoot called Slow Democracy.
Slow Democracy is both the title of a book as well as the name of a concept that “is not a call for longer meetings or more time between decisions ... but a reminder of the care needed for full-blooded, empowered community decision making.”
In Slow Democracy, authors (and Vermonters) Susan Clark and Woden Teachout provide case studies of communities that are successfully resisting the centralization and privatization of public resources that co-opt community decision making. It is an inspirational text on how to regain community control of those things that matter.
Community life and the common good matter; they've been the backbone of small town life in Vermont for a long time - longer than any one of us now benefiting from that life. These qualities of community and the common good helped us weather Irene and have inspired many to seek ways to strengthen our sense of common purpose.
In an effort to learn more about what I can do to sustain and strengthen my slow, local, life, I'm reading Slow Democracy. I invite others to read it, too. Then, join me in a discussion of what we've learned on Sunday, April 14, from 3 to 5 p.m., at the South Newfane Schoolhouse.
We'll talk about the book, we'll talk about our dreams for our towns and - if we're successful - we'll start the slow, democratic process toward renewed local control. Everyone's welcome.