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IT HAS NEVER BEEN EASY being the public. When it comes to local government and the public's involvement, an element the Founding Fathers thought crucial to a democracy's survival, the public is a genuinely confused and beleaguered body.
For instance, take the supposed public information session on the Town at Chancellorsville project. When Spotsylvania County Supervisor Jerry Marcus finally got around to answering a few questions from the public, he chastised them for "coming late to the table" and not having been involved sooner. He, of course, had invited them to this meeting in the first place, and now he stood before them and said they were too late. When one man spoke up and said he had been there from the beginning, Jerry Marcus shrugged his shoulders.
Jerry Marcus shrugged his shoulders. That could be our epitaph.
And, of course, the public has always been urged to "Get out there and vote!" Voting is, after all, our civic duty. By voting we endow our elected officials with the mandate needed to act in the public's interest.
And yet, in Fredericksburg, that, too, apparently isn't good enough--especially for those who this time around were not the object of the public's voting affection. In Fredericksburg, it seems, if you lose an election and you happen to think you should still run the city anyway, you pay to create your own council--a shadow government of unelected but paying personalities. Then you call it government by the people, even though not one was ever voted into office; you exclude the duly elected governing body from participating, and you bully the city into accepting the resulting so-called leadership. It could be beautiful, unless, of course, you happen to be "the public."
Concordia, a private consulting firm which specializes in planning, has been invited into Fredericksburg by certain private interests to operate separately from the existing City Council. Concordia's mission to somehow create a plan for the city's future is a transparent attempt to co-opt the public will and to ostracize our current city leadership into irrelevance. Not only is it almost un-American, it is, like Jerry Marcus' alarming admonition of the public he had invited, insulting and unacceptable.
Intentional or no, Concordia's presence here is disruptive to city interests. Why are they here? Concordia officials have said they were invited by "the people." In their minds "the people" apparently are best represented by a vague, hand-picked 100-member panel, 20 of whom have paid $10,000 apiece for their membership. In our mind, "the people" are best represented by those who voted in the last election.
The fact that Concordia has been here since June 1, before this current council ever took office and without its knowledge, is an outrage and speaks to the motives of those who asked them here. Just in case anyone missed it, the first person to use Concordia's presence to attack City Council was Larry Silver. Silver said council hadn't done a good job building consensus. But Concordia was asked to come here before this council ever took office. Someone should begin by looking up the word "credibility."
In a work session the other day, the Fredericksburg city attorney and the city planner presented a nearly two-hour lecture to City Council on planning and zoning intricacies, and both ended the session with a simple challenge to council: Tell us where you want to go, and we'll get you there. The city planner also stressed the fact that the city cannot work in a vacuum apart from our regional partners.
But the next morning that same planner had been invited to a breakfast with Concordia, a group that would be asking to do just that--planning in the vacuum of a 100-member panel, with no regional ties to organizational bodies already in place and with no direct sanctioning from the voting public. It argued against the request he had made to council.
Concordia wants to give itself some sort of grass-roots validity, but what grass-roots organizations are funded with anonymous $10,000 donations from a moneyed few? Grass-roots organizations rarely lay claim to supplanting a governing body, an act generally referred to as revolution. And what taxpayer is willing to pay for the conclusions of a private panel responsible to no one?
There are three branches of government and, yes, the courts are included. But not one of them is a private group bought and paid for by 20 individuals that sits in a parallel universe and dictates over a duly elected body.
We are a city in the best possible position. We have a newly elected council that has promised to put Fredericksburg first. We have a talented City Hall, with a planning team capable of great sophistication. Who among us would negate the opportunity to use and rely upon these resources? Why bring in a privately funded consulting firm to supplant these things?
Perhaps someone, or some group, with money to burn isn't thrilled with the current political situation and is frankly willing to pay to avoid it.
Concordia, as a word, may imply agreement and harmony. But in this case, I'd call it "Discordia." Our City Council must be an active partner from the beginning. Any legitimate town-hall type arrangement must include the people's elected representation.
A clear planning vision is certainly a desirable objective, but so far the entire process smells like another round of the public's business being subjugated to private and special interests.
PAUL LEWIS of Fredericksburg is president of Rappahannock Area Grassroots.