Following An All-Too-Familiar Pattern

Dear Editor:


When I spoke at the December meeting of the Copake Town Board in favor of retaining the position of fulltime Town Court Clerk, Councilman Danny Tompkins noted that doing so would greatly reduce the hours and compensation of the Assistant Clerk, who had served in that position for several years, and so had seniority. In addition to expressing his view that seniority should be one of the factors considered in appointment, Danny Tompkins was reminding me and others that designs for administra-tive structure have an effect on individual lives, in many cases the lives of Copake citizens who have served their town well.

I would like to see that important concern for the people of Copake extended. The Town Court Clerk case is typical of many that the Town Board will face in this new year. Officials have recommended, and the Board originally adopted, a procedure well designed to serve Copake and its citizens. Negative impact on a town employee led to opposition and conflict. Following an all-too-familiar pattern, the Town Board considered the issue in isolation, clarified competing positions, chose sides, and set out to have a vote that would determine winners and losers.

It is time to recognize that being on the winning side of a vote that denies our town the most beneficial procedure and outcome is not a success; it is a failure. Similarly, to be on the winning side of a vote that unjustly harms a citizen of our town is not to succeed, but to fail. Such failures may, on some occasions, be necessary; however, like war on an international level, which is also an ethical failure of relation, they should be an option of last resort. For too long, they have been and they remain an accepted norm.

 It is time for the people of Copake to require of their Town Board that they be better served. Faced with good and well intentioned choices in tension with each other, those responsible to determine the best outcome should work together to find win-win solutions. To do that, they may have to consider the issue in a broader context. Can, for instance, a person harmed by a decision that is otherwise beneficial be compensated in a different way?

Whatever the issues under consideration, it is by finding win-win solutions that the Town Board will succeed in serving their town and its citizens. The members of our Town Board will have at least eleven more occasions in 2010 to come together to conduct the town’s business. Each member will, on each occasion, have to decide whether to come with a purpose to win in conflict, or to succeed in concert. Their choice will affect all of us.

Clark M. (Mac) Simms