BRATTLEBORO-Real friends are not those who populate the lists of your various social media accounts.
They are the ones who are there for you when things unexpectedly get difficult for you.
This sort of friendship doesn’t result from some acquaintance noticing that you posted something clever. It is cultivated, sometimes naturally over decades of living in the same community or starting from a shared interest that brings people together. Sometimes it happens more intentionally, such as when someone goes and welcomes a new arrival to the neighborhood.
The former might give you a thumbs up, if you’re lucky. The latter might offer to help you with something before you got up the nerve to ask.
The process of building a healthy and vibrant society is similar.
There’s the minimal democratic engagement involved skimming the local news and voting. Then there’s the more intimate involvement of volunteering for a board or committee. Or even sticking your neck out to run for public office.
In most towns around the country the leap from just being a voter to greater involvement is a big step that takes a lot of effort and money.
Here in Brattleboro, we have a remarkably accessible political process. Representative Town Meeting is the most accessible deliberative decision-making body I have seen anywhere in the world. It is at the same time one of best community building exercises, as it brings a broad cross section of the community together to discuss issues that affect the whole town.
It also serves as a training ground for future Selectboard members.
The chance for this large a portion of a town’s residents to get this familiar with the issues and budget of their town is exceedingly rare. It results in Selectboard candidates who are far better prepared to take on the job, along with being a good check on their excesses.
Though we don’t always have competitive races, and I don’t always like the choices that our Selectboard members make, they tend to be well-qualified to serve.
With RTM there to check their work and referenda as a further check, we have a remarkably robust system of governance in Brattleboro.
Let’s preserve the keystone that is RTM, the piece at the center that keeps the arch of our democratic process stable.
Fric Spruyt
Brattleboro
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