To the editor:
As this is being written, our Fall Town Meeting is now less than two weeks away. Seeking to be informed, I have rooted through committee/commission meeting minutes as they have been posted on line.
It hasn't been much of a learning experience. The Finance Committee has assigned its members various tasks, via an outline appearing in the last posted minutes. But Page 2, containing the subjects assigned, does not appear.
Finance Committee minutes from Jan. 28 describe how the then-chairman of the Board of Selectmen called on the committee to congratulate them for budget work. He also indicated a fleet of DPW trucks, and a new ladder truck for the Fire Department would need to be delayed to Fall Town Meeting, hoping that state aid, or a pick-up in revenue, might make these items more attractive in the meeting due now, in two weeks.
The Planning Committee has been deeply engaged in our parking situation. The minutes of this body are deep, dense, informative, and, sometimes, surreal — like the vice-chairman claiming our MBTA collaboration was undercut because Rockport lacked appropriate political clout.
Who would have thought all the planning we heard about, all the meetings, all the jockeying to see who could sit at the head of the table and say, "Look what I did for Rockport?" would come to looking like losers?
We also learn from these minutes that the dam on Mill Creek, to be done in the style of the 18th century, won't happen because it wasn't included in funding just passed for FEMA.
What do we get? Are there any contingencies lined up in either case?
We can also learn from these minutes, that a big awakening is to take place, as Planning, DPW, and Building Usage work together to define plans, not just for the renovation of the former bank building, but to include renovation of Town Hall and the building housing the Fire Department and the parking clerk's office.
When or how that's to be presented, as of now, cannot be found anywhere on the Town Web. Nor can one check out the DPW file and pick up any evidence of meeting minutes, meeting agendas, or anything relative thereto. It might be there, but I can't find it.
It cannot be overlooked that the Community Preservation group will come forward with recommendations for cash distribution to appropriate causes. All such causes have value; so does the fact that we are committed to a 3 percent tax surcharge for the next 20 years, as we pay off the money borrowed to renovate the canary yellow Community House.
Last fall, approximately 300 people debated the community house issue for three hours on opening night. It was a wild evening, with something like 278 votes putting the $2 million CPA funding over the top.
The numbers are in the minutes of the meeting. The second night of that Meeting whizzed through with something like 80 people approving the preservation funding issues carried over from Monday.
We are headed into what could be a monster agenda, or a snooze fest. In either case, the same people will attend, argue, and vote. Some of you won't be able to pass on Monday night football. Others will be weary from a commute, and a hard day at the office. Others, professionals and craftsmen won't attend for fear that a comment or a wrong vote will cost them opportunities.
Consider this:
"The town form of government had been outgrown. As applied to a thriving community of 10,000 inhabitants, it fell short of the requirements of municipal government. In many instances the annual town meetings degenerated in a farce, which the greater portions of the community avoided. Orators who aired their eloquence on the slightest pretext ruled the assemblage and in many cases, effectually blocked the transmittal."
This statement is taken directly from "Sovenir History of Gloucester, Mass, 1623-1892, by James R. Pringle, privately published by the author in 1892.
Gloucester went on to overhaul its charter to change its form of government. Rockport doesn't have, and never will have, 10,000 inhabitants. Gloucester has its current problems, but at least, its residents know who is in charge.
In the Spring of this year, I mouthed off about Rockport being stuck with Town Meeting government. I was wrong. Any community can change its way of doing business, by creating a new, or amending, its charter in effect.
But that would take guts and determination, even if the majority of residents wanted to make such an effort. After all, "this is the purest form of democracy there is."
HERB WESCOTT
Rockport
