LETTER TO THE EDITOR: 5 Selectmen Will Do a Better Job

By now, most of you are aware of the pro and con arguments for voting to change from a 3-member Board of Selectmen (BOS) to a 5-member BOS in the March Sudbury town ballot. As I see it, there are two fundamental questions on which we should focus our attention when considering a 3-vs-5 BOS:

• What are the principal roles that the BOS must execute to effectively govern our town, and
• Would these principal roles be more effectively performed by a 3- or a 5-member BOS?

According to the Town’s charter, the principal roles of our BOS are:

1. to develop and implement executive powers within the context of strategic town governance;
2. to be the chief policy-making board for the town; and
3. to appoint and effectively direct a Town Manager who will act as managing agent of the town’s resources.

There are clearly many other subordinate roles that the BOS must perform, but none are fundamental to optimizing the town’s long-term growth path. Central to the effective execution of the three principal roles is the enumeration of and management to a set of measurable strategic goals and objectives. These goals and objectives should be part of a strategic plan, which essentially becomes the navigational framework for all our town’s departments and committees.

Currently, Sudbury’s 3-member BOS has not developed any specific strategic goals or objectives much less a specific management plan. Without measurable criteria for the town’s manager or the town’s school-systems administrators to use, there is no reliable way for the BOS to effectively plan the allocation of resources and measure progress along a long-term growth path. The net result is a BOS that becomes embroiled in budget squabbles that cannot be effectively adjudicated because there is no long-term rationale. The BOS solution to the budget squabbles has been to ask the town voters for budget overrides. So the Budget Override becomes the principal 3-member BOS tool for “exercising executive-level governance”. Budget-override-based governance has not (and will not) address the root causes of important issues like ever-increasing L/S student/teacher ratios, unfunded teacher’s healthcare liability (now growing past $35M), and 40B developers running roughshod over our town’s zoning laws.

One can only reason that the lack of a BOS plan for executive-level governance must be due to: (1) a lack of time, and/or (2) a lack of understanding, and/or (3) contentment with the status-quo governance approach (i.e., no need to set measurable goals and objectives). Increasing the BOS to 5 members will provide our BOS with the potential for: (1) more governance expertise, (2) greater multi-tasking bandwidth, and (3) more creativity and diversity of thought. The added resources will restore BOS capacity to formulate and generate the town’s sorely-lacking executive-level governance foundations. With these foundations in place, the town’s resources can be effectively directed toward many of our most pressing needs, for example:

1. Expanding our currently shrinking commercial tax base, thereby, reducing the BOS dependency on budget overrides.
2. Enhancing the architecture and infrastructure of Sudbury’s business district, thereby, transforming it from an architectural hodge-podge to a district of cohesive architectural character that is more pleasing to customers and new business owners.
3. Instituting a broadly-focused and evolutionary housing program, thereby, providing a long-term path for cost-effective housing for seniors as well as young families. This program would establish a better balance between a growing school-child-aged family population and a shrinking senior-aged population.
4. Developing an integrated school financing framework that reverses the current trend toward higher L/S student teacher ratios, greater administration costs, and unfunded healthcare liabilities for retired teachers, thereby, ensuring that our schools remain top-drawer. 
5. And, lastly, creating a town-management and financing model that produces funding reserves for high priority public improvement projects, thereby, reducing the growing need for project-specific-funding questions on the town warrant (or ballot).

Considering these pressing needs, an obvious question comes to mind, “How did Sudbury get along without a 5-member BOS in the past?” The answer is that we have had (and continue to have) a very inspired and hard-working group of employees and volunteers that perform work tasks at all functional levels to keep things moving, but without a long-range plan their hard work is merely directed at put-out-the-fire-based tactical-task objectives.

Governing Sudbury has become increasingly complex especially with respect to the town’s required responses to state- and federally-legislated mandates. By not pursuing the afore-referenced long-range planning, the current 3-member BOS places undue burdens on themselves and on all of us current and future taxpayers. With a 5-member BOS the afore-mentioned plan will create the path to Sudbury’s future greatness (i.e., Great Schools, Great Neighborhoods, and Great Community Activism).

Now then, experience shows you might be getting an 11^th hour e-mail from proponents of the status quo, some of whom oppose this change for reasons they have yet to openly express. As you read this expected e-mail, please keep in mind that we who support the measure have spent the last 7 months explaining in public, and in logical and specific terms, why going to a 5-member BOS makes sense for our town.

As you read the expected e-mail, and the undoubtedly ulterior motives it ascribes to our 3-to-5 advocacy, ask yourself this: Why is it that the proponents of this change seem willing to argue their case out in the open, giving others a chance to respond, while those opposed to it – those in power today – feel compelled to object only in private?

Ask yourself also: How come those in power have refused to formally direct the study of 3-vs-5 selectmen but continue to cite the lack of a study as their only reason against 3-to-5?  Does the current power base really want to study 3-vs-5 or do they want to delay a decision indefinitely to the demise of the town’s future?" 

Fellow citizens, it’s time to Open Up Sudbury! Please support us, vote “Yes” on the change from 3-to-5 Selectmen.

Larry Jobson

Morse Road