A lot of people are talking about the tone of our politics in Amesbury and it's important for all of us to remember that words matter. And to tackle the many and complex challenges that our community faces, it means that we all have to listen to each other and be willing to learn. That's why I participated as Chair in the 2010 Ad-Hoc Committee, even though I did not share the perspectives of some of my fellow committee members.
In case you aren't familiar with it, there is a group page on Facebook called 'Citizens for Lower Taxes in Amesbury.' The page's mission is:
- Purpose of group is to keep interested residents informed on budgetary issues, meetings and news related to property taxes and town expenditures. This group will not attack a specific person or group of people. If so, the group will be terminated.
When this group was started a few years ago (one of the Ad-Hoc Committee members among the initiators), its organizers invited elected officials and town employees to join and take questions from the public. Recently, the page has mainly served as an organizing and messaging space for Ken Gray, his supporters and several other folks running for office this year. All of this is well and good and not necessarily noteworthy. But a thread opened up a few days ago and it turned to how the current Mayor (Thatcher Kezer) and his department heads develop their annual budgets.
Helpfully, Patty DiTullio, who was until recently the head a department as the Amesbury Public Library Director, piped in and explained the process that she and other department heads had used to develop their budgets. Her explanation was reasonable and straightforward and you'd think her participation would be welcome, fitting with the stated mission of the group.
But the response to her was anything but reasonable.
Let me put on my Library Trustee hat for a moment and tell you a little about Ms. DiTullio. If you have been a frequent visitor to the Amesbury Public Library in recent years, then you will already be familiar with the many improvements that Ms. DiTullio and her dedicated staff have brought to the APL. Year over year expansion of educational and community programming. Expanded involvement of library resources in meeting the social needs of the community (important these last years, with the economic downturn and the spike in unemployment). Continuous year over year expansion of circulation (currently about 15,000 materials circulate per month out of the library to patrons). Excellent short and long-term planning (and execution of those plans). Increased physical accessibility to materials and resources, despite the constraints of an out of date building. High staff morale and stability. And all with annual budgets that have mostly remain level, if not been reduced. And those budgets? Always brought in under, at the end of the year.
In short, Ms. DiTullio was the kind of 'public servant' that every community craves to have: dedicated, creative, resourceful, inspiring, productive, efficient and an excellent steward of the community's resources.
And her thanks? Being deemed "irrelevant", having her input dismissed out of hand and having her character attacked.
And they wonder why Councilors and City employees rarely, if ever, join in their 'discussions.'
Finally, it is impossible for me not to connect this attitude to what I heard from Mr. Gray at the recent Mayoral Debate (10/9/13). In response to a question regarding the adequacy of funding for our schools, he stated that the School Committee, school administrators and our Superintendent all do a "horrible" job with planning and managing school resources, that they have a total "disconnect" between the needs of students and what their strategic plans are for the schools. And he had also characterized our student performance as 'shameful.'
If any of you know someone on the School Committee or who works in the schools or if you have a child in the schools, you'll know how grossly inaccurate this all is.
So, it is important that we all be able to talk to each other. You just have to look around to see that we are still in difficult times, with decreased state funding and rising costs of goods and services. There are no easy fixes. And lots of folks on all sides of issues get passionate and speak harshly at times. But if we are to tackle our community's needs, we need to start by not tearing down our own house and tearing down each other. We are all partners in this work.
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