BRATTLEBORO — This past March, Representative Town Meeting members approved $14.1 million for a police and fire department facilities renovation project, persuaded that the project solved numerous problems with these two departments and that the solution presented was the best possible. The proposal is the response to an array of minor and major infrastructure deficiencies. Some were recognized 15 years ago.
The Town Meeting members were asked essentially two questions:
• Did they agree with the administration's assessment and solution?
• And were they willing to spend this amount of money for its remediation - that is, would they approve applying for the bond?
Is this project affordable? From the standpoint of whether the loan is secure, the answer is yes. From the standpoint of whether an array of infrastructure problems of varying degrees of importance and necessity would be resolved, the answer is also yes.
But from the standpoint of its impact on the citizens of the town, the issue of affordability of the project becomes murky and uncertain.
The effect of the attendant tax burden was not scrutinized. Would it force out residents who have long considered Brattleboro their home? What would it do to the fabric of the community?
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The members of Representative Town Meeting are, by and large, from the most affluent sector. Most have the resources to cover an additional $200- or $300-per-year tax increase without significant hardship. They also believe that all of the poorest sector of our community are receiving subsidies that protect them from an onerous tax burden.
Town Meeting members were provided no information about the poor who are not protected by the safety net. Nor was there information about the numbers whose income range is too high for enough state protection yet insufficient to save them from giving up their homes, whether owning or renting, and/or from leaving the community.
It would have been interesting to have had that information and to have seen how it would have affected the final decision. In a real way, the response would have provided a reflection of, if not a measure of, our community in the social sense of that word.
This last point is more vital than it might seem. That is: our traditional rationales behind our financial decisions might be the driving force in changing the character and culture of our community.
Does a relatively well-heeled decision-making elite insisting upon a level of town services requiring high taxes drive out the working class, both white and blue collar?
And are we killing the very “Vermont” culture that we want to preserve?
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We are now incurring an additional $14.1 million in debt. The money, however, is not yet allocated.
So can we use our money more effectively? Here's an outline of a project that responds to needs of today and tomorrow.
1. We build a new fire station behind the old, as planned. However, it would have three or four stories, not two. An additional floor or two on a building already going up does not impose huge additional costs.
2. The core town offices in the municipal building would relocate into well-designed offices on one floor. The other floor would be devoted primarily to meeting spaces and other functions. Included would be a large, comfortable, and technologically up-to-date main meeting room for the Selectboard and for other groups that benefit from that type of gathering space, as well as two or three other meeting rooms.
3. The vacated space in the Municipal Building would be renovated to accommodate the police department. The emergency operations center, records storage, jail, and any other functions that suffer from location in the basement would move upstairs, where there would be sufficient space for all of it. There would be no major external addition to the building.
4. The West Brattleboro fire station project would either be scaled back, or no changes would be made at this time.
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The above proposal is considerably less costly than the current intended project. The unused portion of the $14.1 million, perhaps $3 or $4 million, would be earmarked for economic development.
Here is the thinking. The physical structure of the fire department, its firehouse, is unsafe, inadequate and unhealthy. A new additional building does pass the tests for necessity.
Two additional floors will fulfill two needs: one important but minor, and the other major.
The minor need is for more accommodating and effective functioning of administrative offices. The major need, meeting rooms, begins creating the physical space for a much stronger local government. It facilitates rather than depresses the public participation in a democratic political system.
In a sense, our town government's workspace is the equivalent, and vital extension, of our schools. Much as our schools are designed to instill an understanding, appreciation of, and commitment to the American life, the practice of democracy glues our town and country together.
Well-designed meeting spaces accommodate and enable the political system to function in the same way that a firehouse enables a fire department to function. Since there is no more fundamental basis of democracy than effective participation, all of history and all of we know of human nature assures us that diminishing citizen participation erodes and ultimately destroys that democracy.
In the same way that we have to trust that our investment in our schools is essential, so, too, is our investment in our social framework.
The police department, by most measures, is effectively maintaining order in our community. Its officers and staff are doing so under current conditions.
Additional space in the Municipal Building, vacating the basement, and $1 million in appropriate renovations will be more than adequate for the Police Departement to maintain our sense of safety in the community.
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The biggest - and by far the most important and intractable - problem in Brattleboro is our economic climate. It is the problem that is shaping the character of our town.
The above project, which eliminates the Police Department addition, would reallocate a meaningful chunk of money from the $14.1 million for economic development. That money could instead be used to fund projects that create jobs, reduce municipal expenses, and build infrastructure that responds to a realistic assessment of the future.
The creation of jobs is the most essential need for the lifeblood of our town. Jobs are far more important than indoor loading areas for prisoners. Jobs can be anything from development of a forestry industry to expansion of local agriculture (from farms to community gardens), from a municipally owned fiber-optic system to solar arrays, to wind and water power infrastructure, to a local currency system, to new means to process the food we grow.
We can produce power, build things, make things. The choices are limited only by the imagination.
The first step is to engage our imagination and foresight. The next step is to engage the faith in ourselves to move forward.
The point is also to maximize economic gain by developing or fostering enterprise that not only provides jobs but, to the greatest extent possible, is locally owned, uses our own or nearby resources (natural or manufactured), and produces product that can be locally consumed and traded. In this way we begin to rebuild a durable economy.
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You must recognize that this brief column is not so much intended as a plan but as a spark. It is meant to stimulate broader and deeper thinking.
What do we really believe about the future? What is important to leave for the next generation? What will the next generation likely need the most? What is our vision?
Those are the questions from which planning should begin.
And ask yourself: Are we getting what we need most from $14.1 million?