I have talked to a LOT of people over the course of the last 6 months. If there is a common theme it is the shock and anger over the aquatic center. People feel like they were hoodwinked by government into spending a lot of money on something they did not even want when real needs like issues of traffic, flooding, sidewalks, etc. were never addressed. About the kindest thing that I heard was that some people were disappointed in their Town Council.
Some people have asked me why I focused so much of my time and blogging on the issue of the Aquatic Center when it is a 'done deal'. Well, it is exactly because it is a 'done deal' that I felt the need to find out why this ever reached the point it did when I could not find citizen support for the project. I wanted to be sure I was looking for a way to fix the problem, not simply fix blame.
I still haven't found all of the answers like 1) whose idea was this, 2) why weren't citizens involved on something that used so much taxpayer money, and 3) why did it happen in the quiet way that it did? I may never know the answers to those questions. You certainly won't get them from asking the Town Council or Town Manager. There is so little about the Aquatic Center in the Town Council Meeting Minutes it is obvious that only one or two people were making all of the decisions, or there were multiple meetings held that were not available to the public in the way of any notes or minutes. (A great thing about all of those 'committee meetings', schedule them at times that most people can't attend, make sure to do minimal advertising or notice of those meetings, don't take notes that people can access, and voila...you can do pretty much whatever you want. After all they did what the law requires, gave you an option to participate. Nothing in the law/town codes says it has to be a VIABLE option to participate.)
A lot of people want to get rid of Town Council members, thinking that will fix the problem. Well, it might for awhile, but what happens when the same type of person is elected in the future. Yep! The old patterns again emerge.
The only way to make sure that a situation just like the Aquatic Center does not come up again is to change the process whereby something like this is done. The Town Council seems to have done what the Town Code allowed them to do. If the Town Code is written to minimum compliance with the State Code, and written with enough loop holes to choke a moose, ending up with the Aquatic Center is no big surprise.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is that changing the Town Council members, Mayor, Town Manager, Planning Commission, etc. MAY put a bandaid on the problem. But, in order to heal the wound, a long hard look needs to be taken at the Town Codes In the review that I've done thus far, it is a little scary to see how seldom they update/change the code to correspond with changes in the state code while making changes at random to reassign authority and power to only a few rather than the Town Council holding the bulk of power and responsibility. Maybe it will take changing the face of Town Council:
to make the changes in the code possible.
to insure that ALL citizens, not just a few selected by one individual, have the opportunity to serve on committees.
to use citizen committees to make sure that the voices of citizens are heard on more than just certain select issues.
But, I guess that is all up to the current elected officials isn't it?