By Antonio Blasi
Take it from me. Being a Green Party member in municipal office is no fun. I've done it for over 10 years straight! The choices are Selectboard (SB), Planning Board, Town Clerk, Town Manager, Election Clerk, and various committee members. For me it's Planning Board (PB) and Election Clerk (EC). Most PB are appointed, which can lead to severe ingrainment of influence (corruption and conflict). In my town we are elected, unless SB appoints to fill an interim vacancy.
Most PB are Republican party members (R, not GOP). Republicans run everything now, it seems. As EC, a glaring reminder of this is that R has a candidate for EVERY office, while the other two Maine parties do not. More than that is the ethical consideration I constantly face.
Since the Maine Green Independent Party (MGIP) Platform calls for elected party members to uphold the 10 key values while serving in public office, an MGIP member is compromised upon entering the municipal building to take their seat when the other parties are in control, which they are everywhere. Our first value, Ecological Wisdom, the one that distinguishes us from Democratic (D) and R parties, is immediately assaulted. How can MGIP on PB (where land use issues are the most frequent agenda items), or in other municipal offices, make the best use of their time while upholding the platform?
When I first started as an appointed PB associate, I walked into a situation that reeked with old-boy politics, if not ambivalent corruption. The PB chair eventually won an SB seat, and from there sued the town over a land use issue claiming his family had owned a certain parcel for generations, he did not like the Resource Protection zoning the town voted upon his undeveloped coastal wetlands under DEP regulations—that kind of thing. This guy was my abutting neighbor, too. With tongue in cheek, I began learning the ropes, not realizing I was getting the R perspective, because these folks were my neighbors, I socialized with them sometimes, and they, like everyone else, knew I was MGIP, since I announced it during a previous SB campaign I was in. Part of the depression in most towns is the apathy by the residents, to the point that I knew these PB would be reelected because no one else was motivated to take out nominating petitions and campaign for the PB seats that were vacant. Or, others would be appointed by SB if no candidates emerged. I believe it's like this in rural areas; people who move into a rural area want to keep low profiles in general. Those already there want the State to keep out of municipal affairs, and the SB is the primary culprit for keeping the status quo.
I got appointed because a D on the SB was involved with the recycling center that I had run some years before. In other words, I was hired to run the operation as an outsider purposely by its Board of Directors. I was taking up residence in the community my wife had grown up in, so that was my ticket. During that term I ran for SB, while doing good deeds (like keeping the operation from being privatized, and expanding the facility's products and infrastructure), a PB vacancy existed, I was appointed. After that term, I got elected to PB. The first thing I concluded was that the distinction between "native" and "flatlander" is bogus. All residents of my town, Hancock, are from away, as we have no registered tribal members. That's a stigma of oppression that needs to be reversed by reminding those who consider themselves natives and acting in the town's best interests when supporting development in undeveloped areas, are similar to lobbyists taking out-of- state money in the current political situation.
Only after a few years of seeing similar types taking vacant seats did I realize I'd have to educate myself on alternative rationale I could use to vote no on land use issues that would compromise Ecological Wisdom, and go beyond sustainable land use. I got my first lesson in sustainability when my colleagues struck "sustainable" from a draft warrant article my subcommittee proposed. It took a few meetings for me to get the word added again. I tried the same wording in the Mission Statement of the County Planning Commissioner I serve on as appointed by SB to represent my town, Hancock. The Executive Director told an executive committee member that the word is too controversial, and the current “’sound’ land use" clause would have to remain.
PB makes $39 per meeting (down from $42), and I get a pay check with deductions from the municipal treasurer. Although a thankless job bound by state regulation and the zeal of R for development ("Jobs"), PB makes a good jumping off place for someone to run for SB, County Commissioner, State Representative, Senator, and to seek appointment for other municipal and state or county agencies, and non-profits--like land trusts and bay management groups (as I have done). So MGIP can plot a course in public service and make the best of the stacked political odds.
The mental constraints one feels when serving in these conditions give a certain meaning to one's life--like how to cope, not burn out. I look at each agenda item for where I can verbalize for sustainability and recommend permit conditions on an application, or vote against a waiver my colleagues support, or urge the Code Enforcement Officer (CEO), who attends PB meetings, to bring a matter to SB attention (where directions for issuing violations or fines are given by law).
Sometimes MGIP on PB can utilize an opening in the political climate to start something in the town that would never happen on its own. In my case, I pushed for a moratorium to prohibit commercial water extraction. I helped word the moratorium, attended SB meetings to make sure they approved it and sent it to town meeting. 4 times during the progression of my moratorium all votes for its passage were unanimous. For 2 years the moratorium against Nestle has been in effect, and the PB wrote a regulatory ordinance, which I told them I was against.
Muni Green will only progress through motivated research. No opportunities for preventing development exist under state statute. There is always room for compromise with an applicant. Muni GIP must learn what potential alternatives exist, weigh the political ramifications, and spend life energy to prepare them for Board and Committee consideration, convince their placement as agenda items, prepare warrant articles, gather signatures, and be willing to get grilled by a board of R's. It's one thing to be an R's peer, and another to be in the position of convincing R's as a member of the public. Not all Muni Greens are cut out for something like I'll now describe. I think that sooner or later they will consider what they are getting out of their public office experience to the point of attempting something like the following.
In hoping my PB credentials would somehow assist my effort, and being thwarted when presenting this to PB colleagues, I decided to present the Rights-Based Prohibition on Commercial Water Extraction to SB independent of PB. If they considered my politics, they would realize that prohibition on commercial water extraction is a MGIP platform. So there was a lot at stake. My actions in this case invoked the Ecological Wisdom, Future Focus, and Grassroots Democracy values.
Getting on the agenda was a feat, preparing the warrant article (which I took from the town of Newfield website) petition for the warrant article, and Rights-Based Ordinance that Newfield (and Shapleigh) had approved, gathering the signatures, and preparing my argument to SB was a several month experience that I don't regret, and that is now in the Muni record.
My request was for them say they would place the Article and "illegal" Ordinance on the Warrant, before I would gather the remaining signatures the effort would need. The ordinance would have stood next to the PB's regulatory ordinance (that I was on record against) on the town meeting warrant. Voters would have a choice to allow Nestle to begin regulated extraction or they would prohibit it. It all boiled down to whether Hancock would be liable for lawsuit now due to an "unconstitutional home rule provision," or whether Hancock would be liable for lawsuit in the future when Nestle would be able to sue the town under NAFTA for being a barrier to international trade when it wanted more water for its bottles than the town could give. Even after I told them the story of how the Newfield SB placed the Rights-Based Ordinance on the warrant on their own volition, and how the voters approved it, and how saltwater pollution is inevitable when water is extracted in coastal areas in the huge quantities Nestle requires, they deliberated very carefully, and voted it down 25 minutes later. I could see they knew they were affecting the town's future big time. The one original D who advocated for my original PB appointment almost 10 years earlier abstained. That turned out to be another Muni Green impetus-generating event, because I decided to invest the time in working to make the Regulatory Ordinance the strictest of any municipal ordinance statewide (from having seen the other town's ordinances that Nestle sits in on), all the while telling my PB colleagues I would ultimately vote against it.
The only recourse for MGIP/Muni Green when SB acts like Hancock's and Shap-leigh's on any issue that folks in town support is to organize a Notary Town meeting as happened in Shapleigh, where SB's Warrant Articles can be equalized with voter's Warrant Articles. When Shapleigh placed the Rights Based Prohibition on Commercial Extraction on the Notary Town Meeting Warrant, it was approved, making it the law. (The Shapleigh SB countered with the Nestle-assisted Regulatory Ordinance on the Warrant at the regular town meeting two weeks later. Shapleigh has both ordinances on their books awaiting legal procedures to be sure.) When a town adopts the Rights Based Ordinance these days, Nestle and other Multinationals keep legal tabs on what to do next, but move on to the next town to avoid negative public image.
So, if you're MGIP looking for challenge and adventure, try getting appointed to anything in your town, getting written in, or taking out nominating papers. You may want to attend several meetings to get the local color, but put the notion of "flatlander" vs. "native” out of your mind because you're a taxpayer, and you are definitely representing a good percentage of people in your town if you get the job. You being in office will taint the minutes of the board you're on in the most progressive ways ever. You could choose to play it low key, take it to the SB if the 10 keys well-up (no pun intended) on any issue (try asking your state rep to introduce a bill allowing you to vote no on major subdivisions), write letters to the editor inviting the media to attend your board meetings, get them televised, urge your constituents to attend board meetings to share the festivities, because you sitting there will make each meeting special. Expect to get yelled at by Rs, but know you are doing things for your town that no one else would, and you represent folks who APPRECIATE it!
