Time For A Change In Select Board Leadership

A Letter to the Editor from Matt Wilson:

As a 26-year resident and former member of the Finance Committee, I have marveled at how well Reading residents work together as a community. While there have been political differences on the Board of Selectman in the past, our town leaders have seemed to work things out in a civil manner. I had a similar experience as a Town Meeting member, where differing opinions were voiced and respectfully discussed leading to compromises that served the town well.

Yet, over the past couple of years, I have seen a disturbing increase of partisanship and incivility with the current leadership of the Board of Selectman. The clearest example is the Board’s infiltration and manipulation of several of the town’s Committees staffed by volunteers dedicated to make Reading a better place.

The overreach and bias of our Selectboard has come with a cost. By my count, at least six dedicated and passionate volunteers from the Health Board, Human Relations Advisory Committee, and Conservation Commission have been forced to resign, were fired, or have chosen to quit.

The collapse of the Human Relations Advisory Committee (HRAC) over the past year is a case in point. With the discovery of over a dozen swastikas in town and rising tensions about racial issues across the region and nation, the HRAC held a unique opportunity and responsibility to address these issues in town. The HRAC went to work and proposed several programs and initiatives to the Board of Selectman. Instead of respectful collaboration, HRAC volunteers were disregarded and their ideas were dismissed, discredited, and delayed. Ultimately, the Selectmen intervened, overreached, and ultimately took measures to make the committee toothless and irrelevant. Three of the leaders of the Committee resigned in frustration.

Is this the kind of Board of Selectmen we want?

We deserve better. Reading is a proud community that relies on its residents to engage to make our town thrive. The current leadership of the Board of Selectman has centralized their power and put a damper on the path of volunteerism and the moderation that has served this town so well. I am afraid we are taking steps backwards in the work to build capacity to address the town’s 21^st century challenges.

Next week, Reading residents have the opportunity to restore common sense to our Boards. Please vote for Vanessa Alvarado to bring back the civility and kindness that makes Reading the town where we want to live and raise our kids.

Matt Wilson, Summer Ave.