Thoreau – Concord's
DNA

The Concord Campaign

for Quality Governance

Welcome to our Campaign

Quality of governance can be ineffable. Certainly it varies from the eye of one beholder to another. But it matters – ask anyone who has felt the sting, when it went the wrong way.

Quality governance starts where we live – for us, that is the town of Concord, Massachusetts. Our method, in this campaign? We look at cases that may offer insight.

Immediately below, please find the recent decade.Those case summaries by year may be explicated individually on separate pages. Besides links there, the sidebar on the left can also take you to each.

For a topic directory, earlier, 2010 through not quite a decade back, please see further below. (Please note the Discussion Forum is on longterm hiatus.)

Concord governance:

2024

Eight years ago a scourge on our national governance, which would become a cult, engulfing tens of millions, began to unfold. This year Concord, too, will be caught in the maelstrom as we spiral toward the election. Lest we lose that perspective, let’s remind ourselves, go back → to 2016.

We had to go through an adjustment. Interestingly for instance, newspapers would become comfortable routinely calling a President “liar.” And ... so much more.Take the journey back, a slice of that time, at this link:

What is to be done?

Prior to World War II our country endured even Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden; yet we did pull back from that precipice. May we do so again, to enjoy a better adjustment, to calmer times.

In the meantime, Concord now has a Town Meeting Study Committee working on next steps for our direct democracy legislature. Do stay tuned; that Committee link is a good place to start. One prospect is remote participation at Town Meeting, a project now underway for almost a decade. See the latest FAQ.

2021

A citizen review of our Select Board – one instance

'Sunshine' in the process makes our democracy sparkle! For the appointment of a committee, in August, key elements in that process, were conducted without beneficial light shining in. With resulting failure. As this page for 2021 tells.

We can do better. For more salutary outcomes going down our road.

2018

CCTV is central this year

The CCTV page tells the story with over a half dozen video clips, a succinct summary, and commentary and letters in the newspaper.

Update – 2016

Following on from below, where is the community?

We had some work to do – that is done, and more.

Now we have won several School Committee elections. We see a community that takes to itself the strengths that real democracy can bring. And very much, the community can thank those who worked so thoughtfully, long and hard, in that mission.

With a new School Committee, we look forward to renewal, beginning with the search for a Superintendent.

As if to make this new day unmistakable, Town Meeting this year produced a remarkable set of measures. A page with a bit of that video recounts. Perhaps this good progress reflects increasing engagement with the hearings year-round, which culminate in Town Meeting. Such active participation is the crux of democracy – only then do a people truly govern themselves. If so, that would be a further indicator of growing governance maturity among us.

Notably, Town Meeting moved – finally – to consider just how to situate the buses around town, including the possibility to use a bit of the 95 acres at the High School. Management of a bus fleet is a complex matter. The political process so far has brought only blunt instruments, when instead the complexity demands some sophistication. Now that can happen – when, and as, our elected neighbors take the opportunity. Similarly, and related, remediation of the landfill goes back for some new 'light,' to fit into an overall plan.

Of course there is room for more. Did the Governance Committee have impact? Our municipal FTTH proceeds; what do we see for its future?

Status – mid-2014

1 The schools – Word spreads across town

Beginning from February 1, 2012, and a meeting where about 250 Concord residents condemned the school Administration's attempt to outsource the buses, a small group of us formed. From that time – in the face of years-long castigation and ridicule – we stayed the course. Nor did we prevail in the election the next year, 2013.

However. We did speak the facts. With time, word spread across the town, our fair Concord. With time – and sufficient perseverance – truth did out.

• In two Town Meetings now, School Committee positions have been voted down with reverberation, on the order of 85 to 90 percent against.
• We have now elected a reform candidate to the School Committee, in the March 2014 poll, and by a two-to-one vote. Such results commonly signal a mandate.

We see here how a governance culture that attempts to suppress uncomfortable facts, utterly corrosive if not countered, can also be set on a better course – with enough dedication.

This is just to reiterate a few outcomes. Very much more became evident in addition to buses, such as a gross budget overrun in the new high school building plan, and pivotally a loss of confidence in the Administration. Much remains to be done.

2 The Town’s Governance Committee

In a once-in-50-year review, a Governance Committee of eleven able citizens has been at work for about a year, in effect assessing the quality of Concord's governance.

How have they done? Will there be impact from their work? With what outcome? This Concord Campaign site has now, over several years, laid out topics of concern – how, or has, the Governance Committee progressed on these evident problems?

Please stay tuned! This will – naturally – become a topic going forward.

3 The Town’s new fiber-to-the-home broadband network

The initial steps to create a muni FTTH for Concord were taken, here, about twenty-five years ago, then stayed that course too, finally to the recent commercial launch. Concord Broadband has been and will be a focal case for our Concord Campaign.

When government offers a fundamental communications infrastructure for the polity, that raises lively, core policy issues. In a number of states, telco and cableco interests have bought enough – yes, bought – enough legistators to outlaw just what we have done. Shamefully, they have bought –  with 'money in politics,' contributions to legislators – the votes of elected representatives. Thinking, apparently, that they should block citizen choices – that with impunity they can subvert the will of the people.

Back here in Concord, where our new network mixes a venture startup into a AAA bond-rated financial culture, “lively" as a description hardly does the policy questions justice. Again, please stay tuned.

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Staying the course turns out to be a theme here. The case immediately above, now Concord Broadband, took twenty-five years ...

With enough stick-to-it-tive-ness, finally things get done.