What’s Eating the Town of Stow


An atmosphere of fear and apprehension pervades town government. It is not a healthy environment in which to work, and it is not healthy for the town. We will soon enter a town meeting and election cycle, and that always raises concerns, but what is happening now is different. People are afraid to talk for fear of retribution, and that is wrong.

The divisions amongst us are as sharp and defined as if they were carved by a set of five star Henckles cutlery. I believe there are several factors that have contributed to our town-wide unease. Since the Nashoba schools receive somewhere between sixty-five and sixty-eight percent of the town’s gross revenues, I will arbitrarily assign the same percentage of town-wide discomfort to school issues.

First, there are the pro-schoolers and the, well, anti-schoolers. Seriously, no one is really an anti-schoooler. We all believe in an affordable public education, and that is the issue, isn’t it—what is affordable? What might be affordable for someone living on Birch Hill, Roberts Road, Wildlife Woods, or Orchard View may not be affordable for someone living on Great Road or Gleasondale.

I need to digress. Where do developers get names of developments such as Wildlife Woods? Wildlife Woods is the old Dawes parcel of land—in Stow’s Lake District. I walked through the Dawes property—once. I would have called it “Old Tire and Cast-off Refrigerator Woods.” Wildlife? I am not sure about that. Plenty of birds, lots of tree rats (squirrels), maybe some deer from across the street (the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge), and an occasional rabid raccoon, but wildlife? I guess it’s all in the gamey eye (pun intended) of the wildlife beholder. “Orchard View” is another cutesy name for a piece of property that does in fact overlook an orchard--Shelburne Farms. Of course, there would be more orchard to view had not the Orchard View subdivision occupied the site of what was once an orchard itself—the Clemens Farm. Is that progress?

School issues make people uncomfortable, and unfortunately, things such as “schools” become a religion that occupies a large part of people’s lives. I have attended Selectman’s meetings as a casual observer—if you can believe that. While members of the audience gaze into the faces of the Selectmen, listening intently to every word, I gaze into the faces of the audience. I have seen the same frowning, unhappy faces at nearly every meeting I have attended.

Lighten up, folks. If we are ever to get off the dime and provide a school solution to the town that works for the entire town, we need to work together. Sadly, I see that happening only with enormous difficulty, and a lot of unnecessary tummy upset, on the behalf of a lot of people. Thanks to the miracle of cable television, channel nine, and an old VCR, I can tape the Selectman’s meetings for later playback. I advise everyone to try it. Viewing the meeting offline takes the emotion, scowling faces, and the smirking asides out of the meeting, and the viewer “sees” a very different meeting.

Ok, so the schools occupy a lot of our consciousness, and rightly so—at least sixty-five to sixty-eight percent of our town awareness is devoted to the schools, but that does not answer the question I posed at the beginning of this column.

We have a Town Administrator, Bill Wrigley, who has, by and large, done a fine job for the town. If I am correct about Bill Wrigley, why do a few Selectman feel the need to insinuate themselves into nearly every fiber of town government? Is it because they perceive Bill as anti-school? Is this a question of “get even” local politics? I find Bill Wrigley pro-town, and that includes the schools. He is one of the most balanced and competent administrators I have seen in either the public or private sectors.

Selectmen are supposed to set policy and direction. The day-to-day operation of the town should be left to the Town Administrator and the department heads. If a few Selectmen, or any Selectman for that fact, feel the need to control every town process, is it because they are aggressive and over-controlling personalities? I don’t know, maybe, but every selectman needs to understand that we are talking about New England town government that has a tradition that goes back hundreds of years—a tradition that resists authority and praises a consensus arrived at through cooperation and discussion.

People in town government speak about this situation only in hushed tones, and “off the record,” which makes it difficult to report. What I do know is that people are afraid to talk and fear retribution. I believe much of the discomfort I sense in town government is the result of what is perceived as bullying on the part of one or two currently seated selectmen. Had I not witnessed this behavior personally, I would discount what I have heard as rumor. This bullying--which occurs when things don’t exactly happen the way they want them to--is regrettable. It has become a pattern of behavior that is poisoning town government.

I don’t want to live in an Orwellian nightmare where town society is run by Big Brother or Big Sister. I don’t want us to all think alike. I don’t want members of the Finance Committee appointed by the Board of Selectman, and I don’t want members of town government to feel bullied into submission by selectmen who believe their ideas are the only ideas.

I live in Gleasondale, and I am proud of it. Maybe I should dust-off my plans to have Gleasondale secede from Stow, thereby creating the Free Incorporated Village of Gleasondale. I am sure there is more than one person in upper Stow who would happily support our secession—as long as I promised to remain forever ensconced in our happy little village.

© 2006 James K. Dunlap