Caveat emptor leadership
First published in the Wakefield Daily Item, April 17, 2023.
Lately, I’ve pulled way back on my social media time. What kind of person spends hours posting and responding in endless strings of comments in the Wakefield Facebook groups or other social media? Not me.
But occasionally, when there is an issue I care about – like the site location of the new Northeast Metro Tech (NEMT) School – or an important news item or piece of information – like Wakefield resident Jennifer Fanning’s April 11 letter in the Wakefield Daily Item, detailing her Open Meeting Law complaint against the NEMT Building Committee – I’ll jump in and post it so that it gets more attention.
Sadly, my posts of Jennifer’s letter didn’t get much notice. But one concerned citizen, as well as the Item’s intrepid reporter and columnist, did chime-in to express their views.
The citizen tsk-tsk’d me: “Sorry, but the location of the new building was made public, shortly after the decision was made. The Voke [NEMT] announced it on their website back on January 25, 2021. The vote on funding was a year later… The letter writer is just repeating the same lie that has been parroted for over a year now, that NO ONE knew the actual location of the new building. That is blatantly false. It was well known and publicized well in advance.”
Our intrepid reporter upbraided me: “Northeast Metro Tech posted a flyover video online and on social media PRIOR TO THE ELECTION showing exactly where the new school would be built… [and NEMT] posted [an overhead diagram] online and on Facebook on August 19, 2021, FIVE MONTHS BEFORE THE ELECTION (and then re-posted it multiple times over the next few months), showing the exact location of the new building.”
Ohhhh, they posted it on their WEBSITE? They even posted a VIDEO? Well, okay then, never mind. All good. (Sarcasm alert. Also, THE ALL-CAPS ADD A NICE TOUCH DON’T THEY?)
It made me shake my head. I’ve never claimed that “no one knew” about the site selection. But I didn’t know, and hundreds or even thousands of others didn’t know, either. It was not “well known.” What struck me about the responses is how people are so caught up in black-and-white, us-versus-them thinking that they’re missing the point. This is an over $300 million dollar project. They’re destroying acres of core forest (Wakefield forest); they’re blasting off the top of the hill; they’re planning a building design that defies common sense; they’re spending way more (taxpayer) money doing this than they would on other site options.
But hey, the NEMT posted on their website so, oh well, Wakefieldians, “caveat emptor,” as our columnist commented in an earlier Facebook string on this issue. (Insert shrug emoji here.) “Caveat emptor” is Latin for “let the buyer beware.” In this case it should be “caveat civis,” let the citizen beware. In other words, this attitude suggests, project leaders and town leaders should do what they want and get away with whatever they can. If people in the affected community don’t notice, oh well, that’s their problem.
It's like the difference between the letter and the spirit of the law. Or between leaders doing the least possible that they can get away with, versus making a genuine, good faith effort to engage the affected community in the decision-making about the plan. For comparison/contrast, think about all the community forums organized by town leaders on the new Wakefield High School, covering every aspect of the project. None of that happened here. That is what the Open Meeting Complaint highlights.
Now, I know our esteemed columnist would like to blame all of us lazy citizens and shoehorn all this into his voter apathy doomsday scenario. (See both “The price of apathy,” 3/16/23, and “We care a lot,” 4/6/23). As he whined further down in the Facebook string: “This is just another reflection of the growing attitude that citizenship shouldn't entail any effort whatsoever. The government should hand-deliver all the information to everyone's doorstep. And then they should read it to you in case you don't feel like reading. After that, you should get a mail-in ballot so you don't have to be inconvenienced on Election Day. The location of the school was knowable by anyone who was willing make the effort to be an informed citizen.” It is, apparently, all our fault.
I actually agree with Mark Sardella that voter apathy is a big problem. But it is so not the problem here. I consider myself an informed citizen. I am not an apathetic voter. And neither is anyone I know who is involved in this cause. It’s people who care about what’s going on in Wakefield and who were surprised to learn about the site location they had voted for. The NEMT’s sustained pattern of not posting public meetings – and when they did start to sporadically post, not posting an agenda – explains a lot.
Also interesting and perhaps ironic to note: the role reversal of Mark and others on this issue as compared to their stance on the new high school. On the new WMHS, the naysayers were critical of town leaders, arguing that the project was exorbitant, a “Taj Mahal,” and that leaders and yes voters didn’t care about taxpayers who would struggle with the added tax burden. Now they’ve flipped positions, single-mindedly supporting project leaders even though the hilltop site adds substantially to the cost of the project and to the tax burden, and at the broader, deeper expense of the people of Wakefield (and many surrounding towns), who will be deprived of this natural treasure forever, including current residents and future generations.
Why the flip? I suspect it’s because there are certain folks involved in this issue – myself and others – who Mark et al are reflexively against, no matter the issue. Alas, for them, it’s always a matter of us versus them. It would be better to have a reporter keen to investigate and illustrate what might be a difficult, complex truth rather than simply picking a side.
I’m not a perfect citizen, far from it. Of course I wish I had been paying closer attention back before the vote to fund the new Voke. But for a project so big, so consequential for the host town of Wakefield, I do expect project and town leaders to ensure there is active engagement with the community on key decisions along the way, precisely to prevent the kind of situation we’re in now. They clearly failed in this regard.
© Jeff Kehoe