2012 Session #2, Wednesday April 25th, Article 9 – Zoning Bylaw Amendment/Memorial Park

When I chose to run for Town Meeting, I had an agenda. As much as anytime in the past, our personal lives are hectic. Time is a precious commodity, and we are encouraged to delegate civic responsibility to people and institutions, so that we can cope with all the other demands on our time.

My agenda in Arlington is to preserve our system of government, the Town system, as long as it is feasible. Moving to adopt a City form of government would be much easier. It is a far more efficient way to get things done. I don’t believe we have to do this. We are not yet too large a place to manage ourselves. In fact our population has shrunk considerably over the past 40 years. We maintained a Town system in the past, so why not now?

Article 9 would have removed the authority of Town Meeting to approve a new land use. Information on how much land would have fallen under article 9 was conflicting; maybe only a few places, maybe more. Also importantly, if this Article had passed, Town Meeting would not have the opportunity to review and approve of the site plan for the one property currently under consideration, Cooke’s Hollow.

From what I’ve seen of the rough ideas for the space at Cooke’s Hollow so far, it looks like a good thing. The proposed ideas are both beautiful and respectful of the character of the location. The plans would need to be developed much more fully before I could honestly review and vote in the positive for implementation, but so far I like what I see. Finding additional memorial space in Arlington is also a legitimate problem, worthy of much more attention. Despite the prophesies of Arlington being transformed into a necropolis by opponents, I suspect Article 9 would have had a small impact on Arlington overall.

None of that for me was to the point.

While proponents claim that the area impacted by Article 9 was very limited, it is still a case of whittling away at the role and authority of Town Meeting.

Given that in 3 hours of meeting time Town Meeting only managed to take action on this one Article, I can  understand why some may wish to avoid putting issues before Town Meeting, but I still do not approve.

Frankly, proponents of Articles need to start realizing just how much work they need to do. It’s not enough to have a good idea, introduce it to a small handful of people, convince them of its merits, and expect to achieve your goal. If we were a City, you could. Here, you quite intentionally must win the support of the whole Town. It’s not easy or at all efficient to get a majority of a 252 member legislative body to support you.

By sticking with a Town system of government, we lay claim to the notion that far more members of the Town must approve of action than would be the case in a City system of government.

That’s what we’re talking about when we say we want to maintain Town government in Arlington.

It is A LOT of work. That’s not a problem to be solved; that’s the whole point.