DUMMERSTON — A very interesting vote was recently cast by the Brattleboro reps for the Windham Solid Waste Management District to close the Materials Recovery Facility. The collateral damage could be much wider than these folks with their ill-considered vote could have intended.
I don't think I'm alone in reflecting how the same scenario could play out with the Act 46 consolidation proposal.
I understand the impetus for consolidating school functions, and I believe that a lot of the reasons for consolidating make sense. But in light of this vote, the argument that the interests of Brattleboro residents aren't that different from those of the other regional towns rings quite hollow.
I have been very receptive to the school consolidation movement but now, seeing this vote, I am dismayed and chastened.
In the Act 46 scenario, Brattleboro will again have the majority vote to do as it will, regardless of the sentiments of other area towns. It's obvious that the folks Brattleboro voters choose to represent them have no sense of any region-wide affiliation or purpose, and with their dismal record of managing their own schools it's obvious they can provide no reliable or accountable leadership.
Come March, I will be voting against school consolidation as the plan is currently configured.
Act 46 obviously needs an exit built into it, so that if the Brattleboro-controlled board votes to close a school in a neighboring town or use that school in a manner inimical to the majority of town residents, that town can vote to accept the board's decision or choose to leave the union in a reasonably prescribed manner.
It's an option that, on an individual basis, all of us have as citizens: the freedom to act in a way of our own choosing in a society based on laws, a reflection of our inalienable human rights. Yet this right appears to be strangely missing from the Montpelier dictum.
No, the Montpelier deciders are not wiser than the folks in the towns they represent, and it's time they took that lesson to heart and amended Act 46 now - before the March vote, not at some undefined future date.