Letter: Council’s Indifference To Citizen Concerns Has Given Us Weak Democracy

The following letter was sent to the Amherst Town Council on July 14, 2021

Since the change in charter, many residents have been monitoring your meetings, wondering what changes the new government would bring and how year-round decision-making with associated accountability would affect us residents.  Your first year in office obviously involved organization, figuring out roles and assignments, and establishing methods of communicating with constituents.  This approach was understandable to residents and accepted.

Now we are nearing the end of your terms of office, and the latest controversial issue serves to demonstrate how little progress has been made in listening to resident concerns and bridging divides when they arise.  When discussing the building moratorium, you expressed arguments in opposition for numerous reasons: it was poorly written and didn’t achieve what was intended; it was a cover to actually cause a much longer moratorium aimed a stopping development; it would hurt the economy (or economic development); and it wouldn’t help in bringing a grocery store back to the center of town.  None of the nay voters offered a better written proposal that actually did what was intended.  None of the nay voters expressed any concern or understanding for the motivations of the moratorium proposal.  It felt as though this was a return to the town meeting v. Charter dispute, and clearly the town suffers.

Where does that leave us?  Will the legacy of your first term be one of simply maintaining the divisiveness in our town?   Are you satisfied with simply voting down the minority?  How will this approach improve the town?  I would suggest you spend the next four months trying to understand citizen concerns and addressing them rather then going through the motions of governing.

Jack Hirsch Is a resident of Amherst