This letter to the editor from Bruce Coltin and Josh Rosmarin was published on Watertown News on June 18. I am republishing here for those of you who may have missed it.
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On June 9,
two of us – Watertown residents Bruce Coltin and Josh Rosmarin − spoke at the
City Council’s public forum to present our case for the City to commission a
polling organization to better determine where residents stand on major issues.
Here are the
texts of our two-minute comments.
From
Bruce Coltin:
For almost
every local election that I can remember, I falsely believed that that election
would be the breakthrough election – the one where voters would turn out in
record numbers.
In
Watertown, non-voters have been an overwhelming majority to the tune of about
seventy-five percent.
In our most
recent election, the percentage of non-voters rose to just under eighty
percent.
That level
of non-participation is reflected at most council meetings, committee meetings,
and special meetings.
In
Watertown, as in many other cities and towns, too many major consequential
decisions are made with declining public input.
At a meeting
at the Middle School regarding the Watertown Square Area Plan, a resident came
to the microphone and said this to the
council, the planning board, and the city manager:
“You published the results of a poll
of a sort that attracts primarily activists. Would you be willing to commission
a polling organization to do a randomized poll of the residents of Watertown?”
I think our
system, where the vast majority of our residents are sitting on the sidelines
is a broken system, and I think that serious people who truly believe in a
healthy, robust democracy should want to fix it.
And here’s
what we should have learned over the past few years: it won’t get fixed by
expecting them to come to you.
Commissioning
a polling organization to conduct randomized polling of the residents of
Watertown would give you a mechanism by which you could ask those who don’t
vote why they don’t vote and why they don’t come to meetings. You could ask
them lots of questions – like how they feel about dropping a parking garage and
a couple hundred apartment units into the CVS parking lot.
Maybe the
very first thing you should ask them is simply how they are doing during these
trying economic times.
Their
answers might be illuminating and the very act of reaching out might be the
first step in fixing the broken relationship between our government and the
people you are supposed to represent.
From Josh
Rosmarin:
Thanks
Bruce.
I also want
to share my support for a citywide poll of residents’ views as a way to improve
our civic discourse.
I’ve had the
opportunity to get to know Bruce better over the past few months, and while he
and I have a number of substantive disagreements, one thing that unites us is a
desire to see our community thrive. We believe that that’s a common view
held across involved citizens in Watertown, regardless of what side of an issue
we might find ourselves on.
However,
Bruce and I have both noticed that, in the search for that thriving community,
there are times when lacking a common frame of reference can present barriers
to collaboration and compromise.
For
instance, I was motivated to co-found a housing advocacy group because I wanted
to work with my friends and neighbors to address the cost of living in
Watertown. In the course of our work, I’ve also encountered my share of
neighbors who disagree with what we’re doing. That’s completely fine!
What
presents a challenge is when questions about who represents whom in town get in
the way of productive discourse. We of course have biennial elections to sort
that out at a high level, but what’s challenging is when there’s a more
fundamental disagreement about what the majority of residents stand for. We
have academic research from people like BU professor Katherine Einstein showing
that certain types of people—homeowners, older residents, white people—are
overrepresented in community engagement processes. But while well-organized
activist groups can try to address those imbalances, I’d be the first to
acknowledge that the people who engage in long-term community activism are
outliers, too.
So we’re
left with a conundrum − how do we really know what the community wants, and how
can we assess that in a way that everybody in the community believes to be
valid? This is why Bruce and I, despite our differences, are strong believers
in a more rigorous assessment of community sentiment than we’ve had to date. A
citywide poll of residents’ top priorities and concerns can shed valuable light
on where city leaders should prioritize time and effort.
Even with
the best of intentions, our community engagement processes often fall short of
reaching and representing everyone, and I’m hopeful that city councilors and
the city administration will work with us to establish this as a tool to better
understand our city.
Thank you.
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We invite
you to join us on our mission to include more of the Watertown community in the
making of decisions that will affect Watertown residents for years to come. You
can start by contacting your district and at-large councilors and the council
president and voicing your support for this initiative to introduce rigorous,
objective polling on issues that affect all of us.
https://www.watertown-ma.gov/350/City-Council
Bruce Coltin
and Josh Rosmarin
