Hearings should be about discussion not argument

Friday, December 30, 2011

The Town Council is calling Bedford’s proposed spending package a “maintenance budget,” and we have no reason to doubt that that is precisely councilors want it to be.

What does that mean? Well, without knowing all the details, we can suppose that it means spending is being held to what is needed to “maintain” the town, and in this economy, that would seem to be perfectly reasonable. Except to people who want to cut for the sake of cutting, and there are always some. They, of course, will be at the public hearings in January, the hearings leading up to the Budgetary Town Meeting in March. These folks almost always come out because they want to make sure that their point of view is heard. Good for them.

What needs to happen, though, is that those who see that cutting isn’t the be-all and end-all of the management of a town need to come out, too. If they don’t, then the only voices being heard are those who see spending as an inherent evil, which of course it is not. A discussion needs to be held every year, and the Town Council needs to hear many sides of the spending equation. Make no mistake about it, there are more than two sides. “Spend” and “don’t spend” aren’t the only ways to look at things. What we hope is that people going to the hearings understand that the councilors really do try to do what is best for the town. They are not, in the main, raving spendthrifts intent upon raising taxes because it seems like a fun thing to do. If, and when, they make decisions that raise your taxes, they also raise their own, and few public officials are all that willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces.

So when you go to the hearings, go with the attitude that discussion, not argument, is on the table. But do not expect that because you put out a point of view that it will be accepted simply because it is on the table. In the end, the Town Council has to make decisions that are best for the town as a whole. We believe that is what they try to do.