I read of the events of that day in 2004 when I was mayor of a nearby town. It didn’t take long to mentally connect Granby’s destroyed Town Hall with the one in which I found myself in on a weekly basis. I surmised what might have “led” to this reaction.
It wasn’t an academic question. I had watched citizens unhinge right before my eyes as a developer or a neighbor spoke their peace during hearings, then wander out into the night as the town board went on to other municipal topics. Civil discourse in the public process is repeated every week in thousands of town halls, hundreds of times a year in most jurisdictions. Often, decisions are made with little input during multiple, disjointed hearings. A house is remodeled, a property is re-zoned, a special use is permitted. People perceive themselves winners or losers. The NIBMYs often win. Usually when they don’t the perceived future disturbance passes without notice. I wondered then as I do now, how can the process be managed to minimize such outrageous outcomes, and build confidence in the effectiveness of our democracy, strengthening our communities?
Did participating in community hearings mean that I should arm myself against the citizenry I was elected to represent — with skills, with political insight, with compassion, with a sidearm? For years I studiously observed people, sometimes studying their eyes during hearings, wondering about their psychic makeup, the source of their frustration, the target of their anger, wondering how many steps of civic engagement separated that anger and frequent verbal aggression from shooting, bombing, and bulldozing? I sought to minimize frustrations with the process.
Was I a Pollyanna in my beliefs as a young small-town mayor?
We had a lot of contentious public discussion in Eagle back then, and I was invigorated by it. We had tremendous growth opportunities, but changes arrived too fast for many. Since public engagement and transparent processes are the primary civic activity of land use planning managed by elected citizens like me across America, I prepared for meetings: I read the application, expected a well-organized file with maps, photos, and clarity. I asked questions for myself, and questions I thought should be answered for the record. I strategized how to structure a hearing and public input.
Most days those preparations along with some acquired skills seemed sufficient. In time I learned to road-map (interpret) the stages of the land use process for observers so it was less confusing. No surprises—first staff presents, then the applicant, then public input, then…. And I applied ‘soft skills:’ observe citizens and listen with compassion. Make sure the audience respects all speakers. Manage the room with deference and respect. Cut down grandstanding. Encourage all input. Summarize arguments, summarize policy and town code. I tried to be brave enough to clearly state my reasoning for a decision and expected the same from others in leadership. There is nothing more infuriating for a group of vocal citizens who have taken the time to testify then watch a board proceed to close the public hearing, make a motion with minimal discussion or deliberation.
Accreted over time, our decisions contributed to the fabric of the built environment. After being involved in land use, I came to see every place I visited differently. Not static, but made up of decisions, many of which aged poorly. Decisions require stamina, respect, and understanding. I stood with a decision even if I was in the minority. Our communities are a montage of such decisions and reflect our values. I facilitated respecting that if someone was worked up enough to come into town hall to testify, they probably cared about their community as much as anyone else. I also tried to look into the future to visualize what that decision may appear years after everyone forgot who made it.
When citizens showed up, it was a teachable moment, to show their government listened, cared and incorporated their input into decision making. Local government was fair, just and the processes works.
Sidebar: I never pursued a concealed weapons permit because I believe a society that does not trust in law and in law enforcement, a society of individuals who feel the need to be prepared to “defend” themselves at all times, especially in a structured civil proceeding, itself undermines trust in the public process. I did not see myself as that kind of leader. To be prepared to personally exercise justice and confuse being a citizen with being law enforcement inches a society towards the chaos. It is good to know who you are, and I am no cowboy. I have also resisted having a uniformed officer stand guard over mundane public hearings, though I’ve seen the value in having police present as citizens arrive for a contentious hearing to help set the tone. I support a common sense, pre-NRA interpretation of the second amendment. That said, carefully watching citizens from “the bench,” I have spoken up, gaveled, even stood up to re-establish order—occasionally with my heart throbbing fearing what might come next. I have sat and contemplated how quickly I could duck and make the rear emergency exit door while texting on-duty police officers during a meeting.
If you ask local officials, and observers of local government, tensions can run high when changes are proposed to a neighborhood and can be heightened when livelihoods are at stake. People should feel passionate about the place they live. If we create great places, they will. The public process is adopted by ordinance within parameters established by state law. The foundation of that public interest is written into The Constitution which contains all the elements of the judicial due process that filter to local documents that ensure public and private interests are balanced with the uses of property in a community. The process is designed to take in passion, reason, rule of law and all that.
Though un-necessarily complex and apparently bureaucratic to unfamiliar citizens, the process is also messy and quite often clumsily facilitated. I have seen that. And there are leaders who have steered that process unfairly to their own interest, trampling on good faith. There are many boards that when emotions are most pitched make decisions emotionally, retreat to executive session, and without explanation, vote with apparent cowardice, not facing a community they represent. They leave the story to be written in the minds of those angry citizens who walk away without answers. I’m not sure if Granby was an example of that dynamic. Brower in Killdozer does not spend much time in analysis of how the Town Board worked. I know that citizens easily forget that their citizen-leaders are amateurs, and neighbors who have usually worked a full day before coming into Town Hall for a meeting—just like those testifying. Leading is not easy. Participating is not easy. Outcomes are often not readily embraced, even when grounded in in public testimony, in law or code and well managed. It is a leaders’ job to stand, listen, decide and deliver clear direction. It is the public’s job to change leaders as necessary.
The local land use process is designed for local entities led by non-professional elected officials to engage the public and provide clear direction to enable property owners to invest. It is designed for certainty to move forward allowing reasonable, legal challenge. This is the intersection of many inputs to common law. The most contentious public hearings end with most people leaving the room disappointed, leaders exiting with a different opinion from which they may have entered. And if the decision went differently than they hoped, with some explanation as to why. By that measure, the Killdozer story is an anomaly. Granby is an aberration, not a lesson.
Except that, in this day-and-age, contempt of government has become a dangerous sport promoted by national leaders, encouraged by some national media and by the dark conspiracists which seem bent on undermining confidence in the very institutions and processes that bind us. Every man for himself is not a civil society. It is anarchy. The incidents in Granby were not motivated by a movement or a conspiracy. Heemeyer may not have sought to make a point beyond Granby. His actions reflected a very angry citizen. We have one citizen who circles outside Town Hall looking in windows and comes in belligerently at least once a month, pushing his rights to the edge. He has a laundry list of complaints about town and accusations about leaders. Ours is not a society that should welcome bullies who wish to knock over the table when they lose. Or revert to intimidation. Heemeyer may have been the ultimate in sore losers. He is not the first or the last to harbor such feelings.
Ours is a process that should be managed well and then respected, like an election, like local control of land use. It should be an environment that welcomes dissent and through a fair process “resolves” dissent. I am disheartened to report that fourteen years after the Granby incident, we often seem unwilling to take the time to actively engage citizens. Many leaders do not study the process or learn the tools to manage it as they should, or give the public the respect of due process. Locally and nationally, we seem to question government to an unhealthy and unwarranted degree, when we disrespect our institutions either from the inside or outside that may be deserved. And we seem consumed with dividing ourselves so intently that we have forgotten a way forward through civic discourse. When I think about it that way, Killdozer, and the experience of Granby doesn’t feel like an anomaly.
It seems like an omen for a dangerous trend within or the civil society that we ostensibly value. It is an open question for me, with what exactly are we to arm ourselves?
