SalemNews.com, Salem, MA

Opinion

My view: Officials in Beverly, elsewhere need to take the long view

By Brian G. Lewandowski
Published: March 20, 2008

Near my home in Beverly there is a stop sign. Each morning there is a small backup there due to cars turning left onto a main thoroughfare.

A good number of folks do not seem to have time for this backup and so opt to make a quick right and then a left onto another, parallel street. From here they then make the left onto the main thoroughfare.

What they fail to realize is that their very actions may be the reason for the traffic at our stop sign.

This tale illustrates a central tenet of the way we live today in our world of "short attention span theater".

Most of us are guilty of looking for the immediate return or the effect of something only on ourselves. The world has become black and white.

There is no time for the gray or the chance to slow down and think out the outcome of our actions.

It's easier to make a quick PowerPoint presentation or a sound bite than it is to study and discuss. It's easier to fix our problem and make ourselves look better, than it is to fix a community problem — even if that fix is only short-term and benefits just ourselves.

Unfortunately, because of such actions and reactions, communities nationwide are now facing situations like the one here in Beverly. Our school budget is underfunded by $2.7 million for the coming fiscal year.

Our city government is understaffed in essential services, while all around us the infrastructure crumbles. Residents complain of high utility and insurance costs and possible tax increases, not realizing that these issues are intertwined with the picture as a whole.

Just to showcase some important data relevant to the school district deficit:

r Beverly's budget problems are complicated by the current recession and state tax policies of the last 20 to 30 years such as Proposition 2/ (which limits property tax increases) and the poorly explained statewide initiative several years ago that lowered the state income tax rate from 5.95 percent to 5.3 percent.

r Beverly spends $1 million transporting special education students with half going toward out-of-town placements. Note that those are just the transportation costs, and not the full effect of SPED spending.

r The federal government promised to fund No Child Left Behind mandates at 40 percent. Sadly there has not been one year where it has ever been more than 17 percent.

Yet, in a community where only 24 percent of all residents are in households with school-age children, how do you ask the other residents to foot the bill by calling for tax increases?

These residents, too, are feeling the pinch of higher living costs. Simply screaming about children's needs and not offering long-term solutions makes for fabulous sound bites; but alas, also creates more problems than we currently have.

The easy and convenient path would be to sit here and point the finger at eight years of destructive Republican rule or a politically ambitious governor who came to town to cut taxes as a way to launch a presidential bid. But it goes beyond that.

Finger-pointing is part of the black-and-white approach, that easy shortcut we all seem to desire. But now, faced with rising utility and insurance costs and underfunded mandates, those stop-sign-avoiding techniques of the last decade or so are coming back to create real issues for the community and the country at large.

I watch or attend City Council meetings where constituents stand up to complain and talk of the effects of decisions on "me." I attend school meetings where we are told of the dire needs facing our children and the quality of education.

Some folks leave with an understanding of the situation, but all too many leave not being able to see beyond the walls of their own homes. The issues are seen as too many children in their child's class or the fact that taxes are simply the result of a government unable to control its costs.

In all these cases, people are left without an understanding of how their decisions and needs affect the community as a whole. Could a more open forum for public discourse help?

Are there ways to turn the voters away from the narrow focus of the immediate and educate them to the potential of the future? Or has apathy set in?

So while I write this as a plea to our elected officials to fix the financial crises that face our towns, cities and schools, I also am hoping they can properly represent the community as a whole.

I challenge these officials to become the "change" and "experience" that we all seem to need. Put aside political feuds or quickly spoken misgivings and seek out the answers before the problems double or triple in scope. After all, an instantaneous solution may not be the right answer, while proposing long-term and well-explained solutions may not be the wrong answer.

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Brian G. Lewandowski is a photographer and media writer. He has been a Beverly resident for the last three years and a Massachusetts resident for the last nine years.

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