Logical Fallacies and Maine Priorities

a commentary by David W. Lind

June 30, 2008

Eight years ago, I was elected to the Bar Harbor Warrant Committee. This committee seemed a good place to learn about the operations of local government. At the last Bar Harbor Town Meeting, I stepped down as Vice Chairman of that committee and did not run for another term. This commentary outlines some of the things I learned as a warrant committee member and identifies some of the major problems facing the voters in Maine.

The first issue with which I dealt as a new warrant committee member was that of recommending the approval of a scenic byway plan. The United States Department of Transportation had declared state route 3 in Bar Harbor a scenic byway with the additional designation of "All-American Road." These designations made Bar Harbor eligible for millions of dollars in federal funds. However, the voters of Bar Harbor needed to approve a byway plan before funds could be made available. I contacted the state and federal departments of transportation for details about the designations before the warrant committee meeting. I like to be prepared for meetings.

Much to my surprise, no one from Bar Harbor had contacted the federal program manager. She was thrilled that I had called and provided me with important information about the program. Bar Harbor officials had called the state program office. However, I anticipated confusion in our committee meeting based upon my discussions with these program managers.

My apprehension was well founded. At the warrant committee meeting, the chairperson of the byway committee stated that we needed to recommend approval of the byway designation by the voters, not the byway plan. I challenged that assertion even though I was new to the process. After careful examination of the facts, we concluded that we needed to recommend the approval of the byway plan, not the designation. This experience was the first of many examples of incompetence to come before the Bar Harbor Warrant Committee on the part of people anxious to accomplish a limited objective .

When the voters approved the byway plan, Bar Harbor was eligible for federal funding. There was funding for planning purposes that required little justification. But, the major funding required grant applications. I started pushing the town to write grant proposals to no avail. Town employees were too busy to write grants. I then took the initiative to ask that funds be placed in the town budget to hire people to write grants. Twenty-five thousand dollars was set aside for this purpose. None of it was ever used to write grants. Town employees were too busy to hire someone to write grants. The byway committee and other town committees lost interest in pursuing grants. It seemed that most people were satisfied with the designation and the fact that a byway plan existed but no one, except a handful of us, were interested in implementing the plan. When the federal government started to question the commitment of Bar Harbor to the byway plan, a couple of signs were placed on route 3 identifying the road as a scenic byway. Nothing more of substance has been done as of the date I write this commentary.

What I learned from this experience with the scenic byway and other examples I can cite, is that most people active in local government tend to be interested in form but not substance. Pass an ordinance or approve a plan and then sit back to wait for someone else to implement the requirement is the order of the day. People go to town meetings full of sound and fury but signifying nothing (my apologies to the memory of William Shakespeare).

I was assigned by the Town Council to a committee tasked to find new revenues for the Town of Bar Harbor. After many meetings and a great deal of work, we submitted recommendations to the town. None of our major recommendations were ever implemented. However, hundreds of pages produced by this task force are stored in the town hall. As I said at a recent neighborhood meeting, "if studies could be converted to oil, the Town of Bar Harbor could eliminate our dependence on foreign oil for at least a decade." Perhaps this is too much hyperbole but it does express my frustration, not with the system, but with the people's unwillingness to make the system work for them.

At the 2008 Mount Desert High School Annual Meeting, fewer than 40 people approved a budget of over eight million dollars. Only about 200 voters attended the 2008 Bar Harbor Town Meeting assembly and not many voters subsequently cast their written ballots at the polls. Watching Jeopardy on television is apparently more important than town meeting.

In all fairness to the voters, the situation is more complex. These regional and town meetings tend to be dominated by political activists. If one desires to address an issue rationally, one is often confronted with ad hominine attacks (i.e. prejudicial or personal attacks) and irrational rants.  Last year at the Mount Desert High School Annual Meeting, there were ad hominine attacks on our governor for his position on school district consolidation. At this year's meeting, school board members were congratulated for making the governor see the errors of his ways. The issue of "local control" was and remains poorly defined, a product of logical fallacies. I despair for the education of youth on Mount Desert Island.

There are frequent appeals to authority. At one meeting, I questioned the wording of an ordinance from a legal perspective. One person verbally attacked me saying I was wrong because she was a "practicing biologist." I was not aware that "practicing biologists" are legal experts. In fact, I'm not certain what a "practicing biologist" is. This incident is another example of form superseding substance and logical fallacy.

A motion at the last Bar Harbor Town Meeting required that President Bush abide by the War Powers Act and not invade Iran without congressional approval. We were informed that President Bush planned to invade Iran before the end of his term, probably in August. We have just a few more months to determine the accuracy of the Bar Harbor prophets. This non-binding and meaningless resolution passed. However, questions about community infrastructure, the viability of the town water company etc. were not addressed at the meeting.

Then there is the intimidation factor. If one takes an unpopular position, one is shunned or even threatened. The majority of those in attendance at the last Bar Harbor Town Meeting assembly were apparently there to increase funding for the Mount Desert Island YMCA. I watched the faces of the supporters of the Y as various people spoke against the increase in funding for the Y. If looks could wound, the gymnasium floor would have been awash with blood. The motion to increase funding for the Y passed by a comfortable margin. Even I voted for it, not because I was intimidated by the assembly, but because the warrant committee was informed in past years that a cut in the Y's budget would first affect those who could least afford the Y's services. There is little enough for poor children to do in Bar Harbor winters without the Y shutting them out. You can bet that the local business and institutional executives would not be deprived of their daily recreation at the Y if the additional funding had not been approved. The number of voters acting on subsequent substantive issues diminished as the Y crowd gradually lost interest and went home.

Towns throughout Maine face serious infrastructure problems and increases in the cost of energy and services. In addition, voters are demanding amenities like wireless Internet services, cable television, unspoiled views of the ocean, skateboard parks and high-tech playgrounds. All these things cost a great deal of money and, even though some of these demands do not require town government funding, they require the attention and time of town government. Taxes continue to increase as town government attempts to satisfy the most pressing of these demands and procrastinates on others by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on studies.

What is lacking is a rational prioritization of these demands. If more Mainers would take town government seriously, political activists and special interests would not be empowered to waste the time of government officials and civic-minded voters who take the time to attend town meetings. The logical fallacies would drown in a sea of people concerned with substance and better government. As more people participate in town government, more reasonable and rational priorities would be set. Perhaps the current economic climate will force us to be more logical and set better priorities.

Email: davidwlind@msn.com