A recent Press Democrat editorial addressed city council members who don’t finish their terms (“Council members head for the exits,” June 24). Why is this happening? Is it possible that local elected service today brings new, demoralizing pressures, partly in the form of negative, deteriorating public discourse?
Consider my hometown, Windsor, where I was a founding council member who also served on two county boards. The public is invited by law, custom and democracy to comment on public business at council and other public meetings. Historically this is a positive and interesting part of the agenda, typically carried out with mutual respect. Yet, here and elsewhere, public comment periods are now frequently marked by vitriol that astonishes me and other past council members.
My keyboard can’t capture the sarcasm, disdain and even hatred in recent direct communications to Windsor Town Council members. But imagine you have stepped forward to serve and are then told, in tones dripping with bile, that you, personally, don’t care about the people. That you are in someone’s pocket, driven by political ambitions, can’t be trusted and have got to go. And, of course, that you “don’t listen” and “aren’t transparent,” when the accurate statement would be, “You don’t agree with me.” Bullies are OK with the fact that council members and commissioners can’t respond to them during public comment periods.
Usually, pre-pandemic, just a few folks liked to hurl insults in person from the microphone or in writing. Now it’s a regular feature. Surely online comment takes away guardrails that human presence might provide.
As for the soul-darkening swamp of certain social media pages, many community leaders now filter it heavily for their own mental health. Yes, they know that the offenders are a minority, but repetitive meanness has an outsize impact. It gives one pause when, after coming forward to serve, one looks at the stretch of time in which this treatment might have to be endured.
Emotions have a healthy and powerful place in public dialogue. It’s not a bad thing when tears, fear, anger and anxiety show up at the microphone over a range of issues. We saw this in its most wrenching form when Windsor’s recent mayoral scandal erupted, putting a knife in our hearts. Understandably and justifiably, people flooded the council meeting that followed the revelations, expressing excruciating rage and pain. That the disgraced mayor moderated online comments made for a horrific, surreal weirdness, twisting the knife harder.
Then, immediately after and since, some generalized their anger at the mayor at other council and staff members, charging them with knowing more than they could have known, with not taking actions that were legally impossible and with lying about their motives. At our most gut-punched, just when we most needed strong, caring voices to hold us together, we — community leaders, including me — didn’t raise them. Divisions deepened, and civil discourse weakened on all manner of other matters.
We can’t let the next disasters find us still adrift and alienated. I don’t know yet how we will be able to heal, but we will find a way. Restoring productive, respectful communication should be our supercharged, most urgent priority.
Mayors? Council members? Citizens? This is a classic leadership challenge, and not just for Windsor. Setting a good example won’t do it. Speak up against verbal abuse. Stand for respectful debate. One result could be committed, empowered council members who come to the chambers energized for real accomplishments and ready for the honor of serving out their terms.
Maureen Merrill was a member of Windsor’s founding Town Council and is now active in the Town Green business community.
You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.
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July 18, 2021 at 02:13PM
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Close to Home: Public discourse is quickly deteriorating - Santa Rosa Press Democrat
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