Though all indications are positive, only time will tell whether Barack Obama will be the president so many hope he can be. Even if the change he promises comes quickly and dramatically to Washington, it is unlikely the ripple effect of his actions will be felt in the Pioneer Valley for a long time to come. But as he stated so well in his acceptance speech last week, what happened on November 4, 2008 "proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth." The victory, he assessed correctly, was not his, but ours.
As Obama begins to build his transition team and develops strategies to make good on his promises, this is no time to sit back and wonder what will happen next. What is astounding and hopeful about this victory is the undeniable evidence that some pivotal decisions are no longer being made only by corporations and the wealthy and powerful. For the first time in decades, instead of private gain, the common good became an effective rallying cry, and if the public can change the paradigm once in a tremendous and meaningful way, just maybe it can happen again. And again.
The energy and vision that elected Obama needs to be harnessed here in the Valley.
In striking contrast to the majority of national and local elections over the last decade (if not longer), this year's presidential contest was not about choosing between the lesser of two evils, but about choosing a vision that works for an overwhelming majority of Americans. So much of the political narrative in the Valley in recent times has been about elected bureaucrats and fiscal managers struggling to maintain the status quo in the face of dwindling resources. As the flow from the federal and state money faucet is slowly reduced to a trickle, the debate has been largely over whether and how to get national and international corporations and retail chains to bring their business here. Rather than deciding what we want, the discussion and legislation revolves around defining what we don't want.
But what gave the Pioneer Valley its name and put it on the map, once upon a time, was homegrown, ground-breaking industry. The reason Holyoke and Springfield were once compared to Paris, New York and London was because the people who lived and worked here had a strong sense of place and purpose, realized in what they built and created. Multitudes came to visit, live and work in the Valley not because of marketing campaigns that tried to create an impression, but because what was here was impressive.
Instead of relying on officials who believe in their own ability to keep the raft from sinking, we need to find leaders who have a destination we all believe in and who can help us get there. As Obama's election has shown, such leaders cannot be found by polite conversation between politicians and civil servants, but only by hard-nosed, rigorous debate from a multitude of voices. And when our officials fail us, it's foolish and irresponsible to assume re-electing them will fix what has been broken.
Take, for example, Northampton.
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This past spring, Mayor Mary Clare Higgins held her first fundraiser in many years, anticipating a contested election next fall. The last three campaigns she ran were cakewalks, and while some resistance was offered, she was able to win re-election with a minimum of debate, and, more alarmingly, without an actual platform. Because of voter ennui and a local press that was content to take her at her word, the only thing concrete in the vision that Northampton was saddled with was that the corner office in city hall would always contain a Higgins.
Over the last 18 months, in the absence of a stated mayoral platform, Northampton has begun to piece together the values of the current administration and the future it has in mind for the Paradise City. Sustainable growth means expanding the dump to accept more of the state's trash, tearing down historic buildings for more generic housing developments, and ceding the only downtown public park to serve as the entrance to a bland hotel. Instead of seeking out businesses that fit with an allegedly progressive agenda, the city serves up our best developable land to military contractors and scrambles after biotech industries, hoping they might build animal testing labs in our city. Instead of being leaders for social change, officials spend millions to disassociate themselves from mental illness and bicker over the wording of laws restricting freedom of speech for the poor.
The lack of candidates to contest her re-election may not be the mayor's fault, but she's clearly gotten used to having things go her own way without too much public interference.
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At the October 22 meeting of the Citizens' Advisory Committee (CAC), the group charged with overseeing the development of the former Northampton State Hospital property, member Rutherford Platt was lightly admonished by the chair of the committee, Mayor Higgins, for a possible breach of the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law. The committee had convened to vote on adding 100 extra units to the housing development currently under construction on Hospital Hill. Platt, the committee's representative from the Department of Mental Health, wanted to know whether 15 percent of the proposed extra housing would be reserved for people served by the DMH, as had been stipulated by the committee at its founding over a decade ago. The day before the vote, he emailed city officials, representatives of the developers, and a couple other committee members to find out. Instead of a clear answer, he received the rebuke from the mayor.
As important as the Open Meeting Law is, the mayor's invoking it against Platt in the Hospital Hill development fiasco is absurd and hypocritical.
The aim of the law is to make the process of creating public policy transparent and accessible, but as chair of the CAC since its inception in the 1990s, Higgins has only twice opened those meetings to public commentary or questions (and only once did she announce she was doing so ahead of time). Further, there is ample evidence that she and her city staff work closely with the developers to decide the future of the site outside the public's view, and then bring those ready-made decisions to the committee for approval. If we are to believe that the mayor herself has observed the open meeting laws, then the decision to permit local military contractor Kollmorgen to claim the choicest real estate on Hospital Hill—overturning a decade-old plan to attract new business to the site—was made with only a couple hours' worth of deliberation last spring, when the plan was presented to her and the CAC.
Partly due to public outrage at the hasty Kollmorgen decision, chairperson Higgins agreed to delay the vote on the additional housing on Hospital Hill, and to make the next meeting of the CAC on November 17 open to public input. While the people of Northampton should by all means seize this rare opportunity to have a hand in deciding the future of at least part of their city, it's critical they understand that this opportunity has been granted by someone who has no right to do so.
The same law that created the CAC and gave its members oversight of the Hospital Hill development also specified that the chairman's term would be one year. A part of the chair's responsibility would be to hold an election at the end of his or her term for a replacement. Mary Higgins has chaired the committee since before she was mayor and now ignores the term limits, silences the public, and denies her fellow committee members an opportunity to lead. A review of the CAC's meeting minutes shows she has never held the vote required of her.
If we are to make good on the hope Obama's election offers us, it's not enough to simply show up. We must stand up and demand that the decisions affecting our interests are made by officials who respect the democratic process as more than an inconvenience best avoided when possible, but as a tool for creating the best possible future.
The CAC meeting to vote on adding a hundred units to Hospital Hill will be held Monday, November 17, 7 p.m. in the community room at the John F. Kennedy Middle School. See you there.
