BRATTLEBORO-When I tune into a Selectboard meeting, I expect public input, respectful discourse, human emotion - and above all, leadership.
Watching the April 21 Brattleboro Selectboard meeting, I saw too little of the latter. What I witnessed was not decisive leadership, but hesitation, deference, and an apparent inability to move important agenda items forward without punting them down the road.
Leadership is not tiptoeing around one another's feelings. Leadership is making hard calls.
And because communication is often as much nonverbal as verbal, body language matters. Repeatedly looking to one side for reassurance may suggest collaboration - or it may raise questions about who is actually leading. There is, after all, a difference between teamwork and taking cues.
Public comment was cut short by not one but two adult temper tantrums - one involving profanity and a dramatic exit. Then, in response to one person storming off in a huff, a motioned to adjourn, while multiple residents still had their hands raised to speak - a remarkable display of priorities.
My view? Anyone who calls a Selectboard member an expletive and storms out of a meeting has consciously forfeited their role in that conversation. Yet, the meeting bent around the walkout. So much for public engagement.
That is not leadership. That is avoidance dressed up as civility.
We need leaders willing to stay in uncomfortable conversations, confront disrespect in real time, and do the work without fearing a few ruffled feathers. Name-calling and aggression should be shut down, not indulged. Governance should not pause every time someone storms off in protest.
I expect leaders to put on their grown-up pants and govern. I want to think the hundreds of Brattleboro residents who voted expected something a little more mature than infantile theatrics.
My only regret while watching the April 21 meeting was that I hadn't popped popcorn...because what a show!
Alisa Arroyo
Brattleboro
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