Over the past few weeks, I have asked several residents whether they would consider running for the new Charter Commission. Their response was disappointing. In a nutshell, they are discouraged by the present atmosphere of negativity that they hear about on the hate blogs and listen to during public comment at the Town Council meetings.
What a shame. These are upstanding citizens with years of professional experience and commitment to various causes in our community. They would bring an incredible level of expertise and integrity to the review process. But it looks like they, and others, don't want to get into a food fight. Life is too short and there are too many worthy endeavors that they can, and will, volunteer for.
This community loses when good people are discouraged from participating because the handful of critics take their legitimate criticism from discourse to personal attack and mean-spiritedness. The attacks that have been made on town officials, employees and volunteers are just plain wrong. And they ruin communities, not improve them.
The hate blogs need to claim ownership of that fact! Why doesn't the legitimate press, the Cape Cod Times, The Barnstable Patriot and the Register speak up on this issue? Are they now fearful of attack, too?
What do you think?
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A realistic look at life and politics in the Town of Barnstable.
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2 comments:
It is the sad truth at this point that if you are willing to be involved in town affairs at this point you have to be prepared to be smeared in the blogs over and over again.
You need to understand that if you own a business it will be trashed and lied about in cybersphere.
If you are involved in any other volunteer work with private non-profits they may be accused of corruption or attacked simply because you are involved and have dared to stand up to the bullies.
Any thoughtful attempts to improve town government are drowned out by this small nutty group of obstructionists, who have no coherent agenda, just anger and childish rants no matter what the subject.
The good news is that fewer and fewer people are reading the hate blogs this point and many read in disbelief.
Charter Commission papers don't .have to be submitted until at least one week into September. Several possible candidates are holding back until later in the summer to come forward. There is little advantage to announcing now. Meanwhile there is a paradox with the COG and CCL blogs. Half the time mainstream people say nobody reads them, nobody cares about them, everything they say is false. Now we hear how powerful their criticism is. If a person is running with solid establishment credentials, blog attacks should be immaterial. You should disregard the attacks and the voters you seek should be sensible enough to do likewise. Frankly such attacks should win you support from the discerning electorate.
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