Politics

Thus far, I have failed to introduce any thematic cohesiveness to this blog. Subjects have ranged from gardening to writing to religion. The overwhelming majority of out-of-town (off the search engines) visitors come by to read my front porches entry from last September. It doesn’t appear from the counter stats that they bother to wander around once they get here, just pop in for that one entry and leave. I’ve done a couple of follow-up posts but Yahoo is happy with the one from September and after a brief moment of fame as the #2 hit for a search for "front porches" on the MSN search engine, I'm no longer getting traffic from that direction. I guess I could make the entire blog about front porches in response to obvious interest among the general public but there are too many other interesting topics.

One subject I don’t think I’ve tried is politics. For the most part, I don’t get too excited about the subject. It took me a while after I was hired by the public library board to figure out that I work for a local government unit. My small salary is underwritten by the taxpayers of the township in which I reside. The library is governed by state law and I’ve become acquainted with such agencies as the Library Development Office which is part of the Indiana State Library, the State Board of Accounts, and the Department of Local Government Finance. I’ve been favorably impressed with the "bureaucrats" I’ve met in these agencies.

I’ve also become better acquainted with the state legislative process. I’ve discovered that the quest to impress the voting public often outstrips the grasp state politicians have of the true nature of the issues they address. It turns out that being a politician at the state level doesn’t require a degree in rocket science. (Not that such a degree would qualify one for governing.) Rather, it requires the ability to sound good and argue persuasively even when you don’t know what you’re talking about. This may sound cynical but I write it not in derision but simply as an observation. It's a skill I can admire from a distance but which I have little desire to learn.

This week I attended a town meeting. I’m not sure I really belonged there. I live one mile outside the city limits of the town I call home. I don’t vote for town officials. I don’t pay town taxes. I don’t have town services. However, the library is inside the city limits and the topic of discussion was the future of the town, a subject in which I have a stake both as a resident of the larger community and as the town librarian. So I went. I like meetings. I like people and there are almost always people at meetings. Plus, meetings tend to be held in those elusive, neutral "front porch" settings.

This particular meeting was on Thursday evening. Sometime over the past week or so, the three members of the town council met and ended up in conflict with the town park board. By the time the weekly local newspaper went to press on Tuesday afternoon, three of five park board members had resigned, as well as the entire seven-member board of the annual town fair to be held in less than two months, throwing the local political scene into chaos. I was a little leery of the Thursday meeting but headed out into a stormy night to catch the action firsthand rather than relying on the newspaper report.

The meeting itself didn’t strike me as being particularly tense, but I did notice a lack of professionalism and competency for the task at hand. I wasn’t sure the facilitators were collecting anything of value or that they’d know what to do with it if they did. However, I could be surprised. Perhaps there was more going on there than I observed.

The meeting was adjourned as another storm moved through the area and the rain was falling in sheets. I found no conversational opportunities in the building and moved out to the covered front porch to wait for a break in the rain. The group that followed me out the door didn’t appear to notice me as I edged towards the back of the porch. One attendee, the most offended in the blow-up with the town council, treated us all to a colorful report of the ongoing conflict. The contrast between his generally positive contribution to the meeting itself and his bitterly negative attitude on the porch startled me. I later heard a second-hand report from the other side of the conflict that only two of the attendees were truly interested in the meeting and the rest were there simply to agitate.

I take back all I’ve written about community groups being easier to work with than church groups. It may be generally true for community groups that aren’t caught up in politics but right now I’m deeply grateful that I don’t have to be involved in local politics beyond working with the library board, the seven members of which are appointed by five different elected bodies in the county.

I have seldom heard such bitterness and lack of Christian charity as I’ve heard this week. The conflict involves some of the most concerned citizens of this small, struggling town. It will be interesting to see how they manage to resolve their differences so that they can live and work together.

I think I’m glad for the one mile between my home and the city limits and the two miles to the town hall. It's nice to live outside the war zone.