Elected and appointed officials spend a lot of time trying to engage with the public and encouraging public participation in all the processes in which communities undertake.
Far too many important public hearings are held with only the planning commission or select board or members of a task force present as critical decisions are made about our towns and our futures.
So when the public does engage, local officials need to treat their participation with respect and local officials need to follow through on decisions made as a result of citizen participation in the process.
This summer there have been two situations where the Waitsfield Select Board has tried to undo or void the work and decisions made by previous versions of the board, which were made as a result of citizen participation.
Local parents, during Safe Routes to School public hearings, have made their concerns about improved pedestrian access for local roads known. The select board at the time sought a grant to help study the feasibility of widening a shoulder on a well-traveled town road. At a recent meeting of the select board, there was discussion of rejecting that grant and that project.
In the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene 2011, the town worked with Bridge Street Marketplace to get access to the river to remove gravel and promised to return the parking lot to a reasonable condition when it was done. It did not happen and when it was brought to this version of the select board there was pushback and it was not until the minutes from 2011 were consulted that the work was done.
Certainly towns and elected officials must always base their decision making in up-to-the-minute and often fluid circumstances that exist, but it does little for their credibility if they so casually and cavalierly disregard or push back against decisions that have already been made by their predecessors.
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