Frank Speaking

We’re in the last week of one of the most spirited local election years in memory, and its time to figure out exactly who you are voting for, and why.  The tenor of the campaign has been very intense, especially in the last few weeks, and I think that is quite healthy for Greenwich. Healthy in the sense that in their dialogue, the candidates have  brought to the surface the very essence of how we govern and how all 62,000 of us view the role of government and its role. Apart from any personal affection you may have of any of the candidates, this year each camp has come to represent an ideal, and that is very, very different than anything we have seen before.

The views of Peter Tesei and Dave Theis are all tied up in a phrase that Peter cites quite regularly, which is “our decentralized form of government”. In this point of view, Greenwich is run best when the First Selectman sits more or less in an overall support role, takes care of ceremonial executive functions, acts as a pivot for the decisions of our Boards and Commissions, and, most importantly, is a friend. Dave Theis’s campaign slogan “Your Neighbor in Government” is no coincidence – he appears to believe quite strongly that your ability to relate to him alone is far more significant than his policy prescriptions. Peter and Dave believe clearly that tangible goals and aspirations in office are far less important than comity, consensus and tradition. Its not that Peter does not care about solving the flooding problems in Town, just that to him it is more important that our Town stakeholders reach complete consensus before we take action, that acting now with opposition is never the right course to take. Having literally grown up in this kind of courtly governance, Peter clings quite tightly to its traditions.

I see Lin Lavery and Drew Marzullo as more interested in the government being an agent of accomplishment. In this perspective, the Town works best when the Selectmen are more active leaders over a government structure. It is no accident that Lin and Drew are always making statements that include terms like “fix it” and “get things done” when addressing how they might govern. As candidates, they are much more comfortable with citing specific projects to tackle and goals to achieve than their opponents. In this perspective, the results matter far more than process. In Lin’s perspective, consensus for our flooding problems would be built during a dynamic process, rather than as a prerequisite for starting the process at all. Lin’s political history has taken place almost exclusively outside the world of Town elective office, and without having achieved her own success through the mastery of our current governmental system she appears to have a more expansive view of its utility. I believe she is always quite surprised that anyone would choose  process over results, regardless of its role. I think Lin is very happy for you to be her friend, but I think she’d rather be known for her deeds.

Two years ago, when we were just starting down the road of economic upheaval, the Greenwich government was, at best, an abstraction to many of our residents. The perspective of Peter Tesei made a lot of sense in a Greenwich of plenty,  a Greenwich of multitudinous options and, if you were even inclined to vote (and nearly 66% of us did not), a Greenwich which on the surface seemed to work just fine, thank you. When you are doing OK in life, why should you care about the depleted Parking Fund? It was just all chatter in a town with low taxes, police directing traffic with white gloves, and an international reputation for financial success.

A lot of that has changed, and mostly for the worse. In that environment, the voters have to ask themselves the question of who they are voting for and why. Apart from their respective families and close friends, this year its not about Peter and Lin, or Dave and Drew as personalities. Its about the Republican ticket,  resident politicians in the old school mold, people who will bend over backward to achieve consensus above all and whose central theme seems to be electing them as stewards af a system, versus the Democratic ticket, very much politicians of the modern sense, people who are defined by a set of specific goals and objectives, who seem eager to be elected to “do things” for the Town rather than be objects of tradition.

Viewed in the perspective of current events, what’s your choice?

For the first time since Lowell Weicker in 1971, our Congressman comes from Greenwich. There are a lot of things you can say about Jim Himes, but you can’t fault his address.

I’ve had a few differences with Jim over the past four years, most of which overlapped his time as Chairman of the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee. Many were, in the scheme of things, insignificant. I would have rather he done one thing or another to support my campaigns in the way I liked it, for example. Or in another case, I would rather he not support certain candidates over others that I backed. From a political perspective, nothing that I disagreed with that Jim did as Chairman of the DTC probably moved the life of any Greenwich resident one iota. But for my own reasons, it mattered to me.

Other issues in which I have differences with our Congressman are far more substantial. I look at our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from multiple, personal prisms. I look past the geopolitical to think of the effect on my two children, how the cost of two wars will harm us for decades to come. I worry about whether they will be obligated to wear the uniform of our country to fight for something I have to strain to make sensible. I have concerns that they will have to live in a world more hostile to America than I did, and I want them to be part of the world out there. On these issues, unfortunately, Rep. Himes has not satisfied my personal preferences since he took office this past January, no more than he may have had in the critical issue of ordering extra phone lines for the DTC election headquarters in 2007.

This issue of personal preference with our Congressman has popped up in a more open way lately following his “yes” vote in a non-binding resolution to defer closing of the Guantanamo prison camp. Jim Himes first found traction as a congressional candidate through the support of the left-wing “blogger” community. To say there is dismay in this group is an understatement. I have many friends that worked long and hard for a solid year to get Jim elected. When you work in the political trenches like that, you tend to get a strong ownership feel for the office-seeker, as if your issues and the candidates’ are always aligned. When those issue interests diverge, change for political calculus, or otherwise morph into something other than what you expected, grief is not an unfair word to use in describing the feelings. Politics is a very emotional activity to be involved with, because it is the intersection of feelings and logic in the pursuit of a goal, and its hard to separate or balance them when discussing ones important issues.

But this separation is something we have to do, and its the kind of thing we elect Congresspersons to do for us. In a surprising way, I find the Congressman’s vote to be strangely satisfying, even if I don’t agree with it. In one vote, he’s managed to support our President’s agenda, earn a seat at the table on the issue, represent the opinions of other (primarily Republican) residents, and perhaps even signal something extraordinarily rare in our politics – the ability to perhaps change ones mind because they were persuaded by what they saw as the facts. His action engenders one word that has up until now not been a regular one in other descriptions of Jim - respect.

America is the kind of place where well-meaning and passionate people in Fairfield County Connecticut have the clout and the drive in their collective energies into actually being part of solving the problems of the world. The course of the Iraq war started its change in the Greenwich living rooms which launched the Lamont campaign. But my solutions are not the same as many people who either agree or disagree with my general moral compass, and dogma and political rigidity needs to disappear if we are to move ahead as a society. If Jim Himes can continue to build respect as a leader, and not just as a candidate – and goodness knows he has the brains to do so –  he, and we, might do just fine.  Leading is in a large measure earning enough respect to get the benefit of the doubt. My personal preference is to have a Congressman who earns mine, and he has.

I’ve always believed that something is eternal in Greenwich until its not. Even though they didn’t appear on Greenwich Avenue until, I believe, the 1950′s, many of the defenders of cops directing traffic on the Avenue (count me as one of them) talk as if Daniel Patrick and Robert Feake stepped off the boat in 1640 with three shifts of Greenwich police officers in tow. Yet when Peter Tesei budgeted away the officer on Lewis Street last year, not much changed in our lives and our Town.

I appreciate the nearly 50 responses I received regarding my previous post on the RTM. My unscientific straw poll shows a rather heated opinion of the institution, strongly pro, strongly con and nothing in the middle. But what I found most striking about the defenders of the current RTM configuration is the constant refrain that it is “special”. One commentator summed up the position quite eloquently. He stated that the RTM must stay because it is the special form of government for our Town, and that Greenwich is special and subsequently the RTM and all it entails, good, bad or indifferent, itself is special.

“Special” is defined a number of ways in the dictionary, but the usage that seemed most appropriate to me in the discussion of the RTM is,”being in some way superior”. People are saying the RTM encourages “citizen” government, the RTM is the “government the people want”, the RTM is special “because it is ours”. But how, in a practical sense, can this be defined as special government. In what way does  it create a government that does its job in a practical fashion superior to our neighbors near and far. Other than one well-crafted statement about the most recent child safety ordinance being tabled, the support of the RTM by its boosters seems to be limited to referring to its value as a social institution.

Greenwich changes its social, political and physical landscape all the time, as all living communities do. In the 1920′s and 1930′s we completely revamped our entire political structure, including ending a 300 year Town Meeting tradition. It seems to be an odd statement that any change in 2009, even for the good, dilutes the historic specialness of Greenwich. Because its one thing to be special, another to be effective. In the event the RTM be changed, altered, amended, appended or segmented, Greenwich will continue to be special. Positive change will not in any way alter this fact, but a governmental body whose powers are rooted in the negative could, no matter how special its existence may be to some of its participants.

The RTM is a fascinating institution. Over the past few years we’ve had the Jim Lash blue-ribbon panel, an anniversary party, and today a story in the paper saying that 20% of the people rarely show up. What would one make of this?

I think the first thing to note is that the only real powers that the RTM has are the powers of “no”. When the BET/First Selectman sends their budget over to the RTM for approval, the members can vote “no” on certain items, but they can never actually add anything. When the Selectmen send nominees for boards and commissions over to the RTM, they hold a minimum of two committee hearings, but the only power they have is to vote “no”.

Now you might be saying, voting “yes” is a power as well, right? But that is not how it is exercised at all, because so many decisions of the various agencies that land in the laps of the RTM were made without RTM consultations. Its a good bet that all 230 members didn’t get a call from Peter Tesei this year asking what exactly they might like included in his budget. A good many people join the RTM because they want to have a say in the community, and quickly get disillusioned that there seems to be little for them to do, and even less authority to be exercised. So, the members themselves get exercised, because the only way one seems to get attention is when they flex their “no” powers. You want a seat at the table for the dearly departed Greenwich Center for the Arts? Just say no, we will not approve a $350,000 allocation. Then, people take notice of your no-ness and work so hard to get you to yes. You become part of the equation. It feels good, and you believe you have made a difference with that “no”

Unfortunately, “no” is not very civil, and not terribly fun or productive. Consequently, many members seem to quickly fade into oblivion, as membership in the RTM becomes more of a Monday night hobby, provided one has a DVR to record “House” on FOX. Someone once told me that 40 members of the RTM do all the work, drive the agenda, and make all the policy. And from what I’ve seen, that may be overstating it, but close enough. But while I greatly respect the Joan Caldwells and Franklin Bloomers who give almost full-time free labor and intellect to Greenwich, their agenda seems to be very “no” based. No development, no King Street fire house, no Arts Center, etc. etc. Its not their personalities, its the hand they have been dealt in our screwy political structure.

I’m very involved in Greenwich politics, but I have never seen a signature gatherer for an RTM seat, never been invited to meet my representatives and, until recently, had absolutely no clue who they are. And none of my neighbors, in either District 2 or 8 have much idea themselves. I think the reason for that is that an RTM member doesn’t have to be so proactive, because it feels like it doesn’t really matter much if they can’t help me with my taxes, schools, traffic problems, etc. The whole institution seems to accomplish something, but so, so much of it seems quite symbolic and increasingly irrelevant.

New Canaan, a town very much like our own, with a similar affectation for its history and traditions, jettisoned its RTM for a Town Council. Many thought at the time that it would irreparably harm the citizen input in government and, from what I hear, they would never turn back today after just 4 years. The Town Meeting was a great idea when we had 2,500 people and government met once a year to pass a budget. When everyone couldn’t fit into the High School, or when the unscrupulous plotted factionalism, we went to the Representative Town Meeting as an acknowledgment of the times and our burgeoning population. Well, we can still get good, even better, citizen representation if we, at a minimum, shrank to ensure those 40 committed people form a body that gets more authority, hopefully something with “yes” attached to it. This is what the times demand, even if we have to make a brave leap.

Last Sunday morning, I got an email from my mother asking me if she could come down from Rhode Island for the night on Friday because Steve Grunow died. Steve had been smacking away at cancer over the last year or so and, while he wasn’t looking so superb the last time I saw him, I figured he he’d be around for some more time than just September. The funeral, she said, was Friday September 11th.

It is sobering and sad when your parents’ friends who you really like die. Steve Grunow met my parents when they tried out for the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department rescue squad back in the mid-1970′s. The EMT training didn’t last, in fact I’m surprised they even started in the first place – in my view, it wasn’t in their DNA. But it paid dividends in the large pile of lifelong friends they made in Old Greenwich, two of which were Steve and Linda Grunow. Even when I was out of town, on the other side of the world on occasion, my mother seemed to always have a Steve Grunow story. And the stories were all the same; something happened, Steve was cranky over some project, madness ensued, then everyone was buddies. He seemed like an OK guy.

When I moved back to town now 9-10 years ago, the Grunow’s moved right back into my orbit, but not in that call-for-advice kind of way, but in that mental roster we all make when we try to figure out who is and is not in our corner. And sure enough, they were. When I had a question about house construction, I called up Steve as if it were nothing, and it didn’t feel the slightest bit strange to ask a favor from someone who had never needed a thing from me in his whole life. When I ran for State Senator, and later First Selectman, the Grunows were first up with generous donations and in saying nice things (all lies, I swear). When we joined Rocky Point, I didn’t need to be with my mother to sit with Steve, drink a couple of glasses of wine and get the sense, in the exact same context, why they became friends with my parents in the first place back in the day.

I figured Steve was probably a popular guy, he was easy in bearing, if somewhat of a gruff shell exterior type. The kind someone once called a burnt marshmellow – grusty and burnt on the outside, melty and sweet underneath. I didn’t go to the funeral because I figured that these are the kind of things that are reserved for those really important and close people and while I liked Steve a lot, I didn;t put myself in that category.

It seems, however, that I was probably the only dope who overthought that decision. Passing First Congregational today, in the wet, ugly rain, was a New York City style traffic jam, cars backed up from the Civic Center to Sound Beach, parked at the side of every side street, on Sound Beach, practically every safe streetside covered with a car. I hoped for a second that nobody in Old Greenwich was careless with matches this afternoon, because the entire fire department was in attendance, mourning bunting on the sides of their engines. For that matter, they were probably safe because all the same people were in the church.

You can’t but think that this was a seriously popular guy, and when my mother came back to my place afterward, she was smiling. I gave her a hug because I was really happy to see her, but I could only think what a good life he must have had that so many people wanted to be there with him one last time.

The Housing Authority rears its head again in an ongoing quest to fulfill its mission of developing low-cost housing in Greenwich, this time with the resubmission for Senior Citizens housing at McKinney Terrace at the corner of the Post Road and Western Junior Highway.  As usual, the real dynamism isn’t in the planning, but in fact in the very obvious symbolism.

My real belief is that an overwhelming amount of people in Greenwich support the idea of having a safe and convenient place for the teachers, firemen and the like to live, without having to commute from Sherman or (fact) East Hampton NY, as one fireman does. I don’t think that many people really think that if you run out of money, you have to forfeit your Greenwich pass and move on to Stamford and beyond – especially if you are older.

Its two things, economics and status. As far as economics go, Byram residents have a point which is why do all new plans seem to be construction in Byram or Pemberwick? If these neighborhoods get tarred as “where the poor people live”, regardless of the high quality of the future residents, then this part of town becomes ‘lesser’ Greenwich, property values sink, people get hurt. If there was a real concerted effort to spread the load all over town – if someone would propose something, anything, in the three districts without affordable housing (District 6 Old Greenwich, District 2, Belle Haven and my neighborhood in South Cos Cob, and District 10, Northwest backcountry), perhaps there would be a sense that the Housing Authority, or the Town or whomever is really responsible for this kind of work,  is pushing an even proposition and not limiting or diminishing neighborhoods.

At least that’s the theory.

The other, and more difficult issue to tackle is status. In my observation, many people treat Greenwich as a status label, a habitation brand name, a credential to the world of the upscale and better. I’ve seen it in action. My wife started to receive promotions at her last job only about the time they figured out that Cos Cob was in fact Greenwich – as if it made her a more worthy person. The development of affordable, senior, low cost, whatever-you-name-it-it-doesn’t-have-Peacock-kitchens housing in that town doesn’t quite jibe with that image. Its not right, its not fair, its not pervasive, but its there. If you wanted a semi-rural New England village (of 62,000 people), you certainly don’t want multifamily housing invading your dream.

What do these two issues have in common when it comes to the development of new housing units? Fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the poor guy, fear of the ugly building, fear of losing money, fear of losing YOUR town, fear of being marginalized, fear of change. And fear trumps a good heart, a sensible decision, concern for your neighbor and a healthy, economically diverse community. The hard-hearted, myopic folks who think Greenwich is only for those who can afford it are there, but in the deep minority – and I’d like to see how many want to show the door to their friends thay thought might never lose the millions they did in the past year on Wall Street. The rest of us think - and know - that a sensible affordable housing plan is essential to our future.

Its not going to be the Housing Authority – they are a private company accountable only to their Board whose job is to build and maintain affordable housing. this is the law for all 169 towns in the State. What we need is leadership, direction, focus and, above all, trust. Where is it going to come from? Plus, since State law is very friendly to affordable housing, its not out of the question that we get a plan imposed on us if we don’t get our act together as a community.

We survived the day where our President, with the assistance of some of those spinning hypnosis wheels from ’50′s movies, and subliminal commands (“I love the leader” – h/t Simpsons fans) was going to turn our children into drones eager to force-feed Socialist medical care down the unsuspecting throats of true American patriots. Early dispatches seem to indicate that we are still a fairly safe nation in that regard, and that our kids still could really not have cared at all, except that theyprobably hoped they might get a snack, or perhaps an additional 15 minutes of recess while the a/v department sets up the tv’s.

Because its in vogue for some to assume that anything President Obama does is part of the Official Oxymoronic Communist-Fascist Conspiracy, a few true-blues on the right of the Greenwich political spectrum called up Dr. Sidney Freund, our Brooklyn-born, Dobbs Ferry seasoned new School Super, to complain. General talking points consisted of the usual complaints heard out in the newsworld these days;  it was a waste of money, it was Socialist indoctrination, the “study materials” would force the kids to register Democratic if they wanted to live, the State didn’t make it part of the official curriculum, it took away from study time. In my mind, these were not sincere comments meant to help Greenwich schoolchildren become better and more productive members of society, they were political statements made by partisans to achieve a goal that really, truly has absolutely nothing to do with education, hand-wringing comments notwithstanding.

Something happened in reaction to 10 emails to the saidsame Dr. Freund in the Havemeyer building that, as a parent, disturbs me greatly. Because first he dictated that the Obama speech wouldn’t be shown at all, then he flipped completely and said it would, then split the baby and said it would be shown later in the week in its entirety. In any event, his response pleased absolutely nobody. I know the man is new to town, but just who is advising him? Is he a go-it-aloner like Betty Sternberg, making his mistakes all on his own? Is he Larry Leverett, content to let the unaccountable Havemeyer administration make the calls all on their own? How about the School Board, being that entity’s only employee, what did they advise him – if anything? And what does this say about how these people think about all of our kids?

I think everyone fell down at the job here. I want my two children to respect America and its institutions. And no institution is more important to the nation than that of the Presidency. I couldn’t stand the policies of George Bush from the first day to the blissful last, but I made sure my kids respected our President.  I would have accepted a GOOD reason for cancelling this speech.  But when our school administration appears to be playing politics, either through cowardly obeisance to a few Republican supposed “political leaders”, nonsensical comments about not being able to get the tv’s out to the classrooms (when they did it for the Inauguration this past January), or the ultimate insult to a true Greenwich person, the “State” won’t let us. This is not respect, it is foolhardiness, a terrible example for our kids, a disturbing sign of the future at the Board of Education, and just plain dumb.