What you may not read about in the newspapers about the meeting tonight can be summed up under the umbrella of the need for connecting with people.
During Citizen's Comments there was a request, echoed by more than one person, to consider some enhanced publicizing for public hearings - for all town boards or committees, especially on topics that might prove controversial.
It is less likely that voters are apathetic about town matters or that they refuse to come out to public hearings; perhaps more likely, they simply may not know about a hearing, or plan, or decision.
If attendance is not high (or worse, nonexistent...) at forums where the public is actually allowed to speak, even though a publicizing plan for the forum is in place, then it cannot hurt to consider beefing up the publicizing.
The theme of communication with the public seemed destined to continue. Of the approximately 30 people in the audience tonight, a good 25 or so came to support - or respond to - a concern by several land owners on Parsons Road about noise from ATV's now regularly using part of the road as a result of an earlier ok by the selectboard. They felt that decisions had been made on top of them - that they had no say in it.
We as citizens don't like to feel we have been kept in the dark, or that something or someone might be infringing on our space - or that we don't matter.
But, tonight, several good things emerged as a special section of the meeting devoted to this topic unfolded.
It became obvious, as the discussion progressed, that one audience member representing one particular side of the issue, plus at least one board member, perhaps two, and the town manager had already talked and prearranged a little here and there.
Nevertheless, there was:
* an attempt to allow actual citizen input, even if a couple of people were stopped mid-sentence, and a couple more aggressive speakers just kept going and were not stopped;
*a tiny beginning of dialogue, not only between audience members with opposing views, but between some board members and audience speakers;
*a real move, by two board members, to connect with the people speaking, to the point where each of the two said, at different points during the session, in their own individual ways, that they were genuinely sorry about the situation.
*an interest by the Oxford ATV club, also the X-tra Mile ATV club, to try to work with the land owners; and the landowners, though standing their ground, accepted a 3 month period of adjustment, agreeing to a meeting early in December for a conclusion, and in the interim, a meeting of landowners and ATV club reps.
There are still a few facts that need to be double-checked about what was actually said at the original meeting and voted on.
There is more facilitating needed between those who make the rules and those who are affected by them. There was too much quoting of law.... not a useful tool in discussions like tonight's....
...and a little arrogance and patronizing that needs tempering....
But this town, any town, is about people - laws and ATVs and roads and ordinances notwithstanding. Making this town work is about valuing the people in the town. All of them, not just the convenient or the loud or the intimidating. The laws and ATVs and roads and ordinances - and all the rest - will fit in as the people allow them to.
