In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash

Barbara Tuchman in her classic history "The Guns of August" documented how the leaders of Europe carelessly drifted into World War I while everyone was away on summer vacation. I get that feeling with the Debt Ceiling Crisis. If things go bad in the negotiations between the pols who seem more intent on setting up the election of 2012 rather than solving this crisis, then the Great Recession will look like a picnic. Clearly, Republicans are right when they say we can't blithely raise the debt ceiling and go on spending money. The Democrats are equally right when they say we must raise taxes in order to cover part of the deficit. In normal times this would be the basis for a compromise, but a compromise means both parties have to trust the other and we live in the Age of Distrust.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who follows town politics. A poisonous distrust seems to pervade the coffee shop cabals who will tell you that something shady is going on whenever town government tries to do anything. One of the latest "plots" is the CPA sponsored playing fields on Chestnut Street. Now the root of the problem is that there are people in town who get in a lather whenever the town spends money on anything. But unlike higher levels of government where they can decry any spending as taking "our" money to help "them," here the majority of people at town meeting believe we are using our money to help ourselves. Thus, other arguments are needed, and in this case it is a rather egregious one: the land where the fields will be built are fatally contaminated with industrial waste. As a town leader says "It's as if they believe we'd poison our own children" in order to build the fields. In fact, the belief that the town is covering something up is so pervasive that someone sneaked onto the property and took their own soil samples (although the belief is the trespasser actually was not on the property in question). The CPA Committee voted up to $2,000 for soil tests at the site about five times what the private citizen spent on their tests, but one wonders whether the "other side" will trust the results of something paid for by a part of town government.

Mr. Endruinas, who is building the fields, has invited strict scrutiny from the CPA as they are being built. He has asked members to visit at any time and ask any questions they might have. I think we may even have the ability to temporarily stop the project until our questions are answered. I visited over the 4th of July holiday. Admittedly I was trying to find a route to Mansfield around the Five Corners, but I did stop and spend time at the Big Dig. The questionable land  is being removed by the construction which has dug down about 10 feet in an area about the size of a soccer field. While there was certainly junk and construction debris dumped on the site, the huge mound of soil excavated from the hole looks a lot like, well, dirt, the same sandy looking soil that underlays most of Easton. I'll keep checking back week by week as I continue my search for a northwest passage to L. L. Bean, but I certainly see no reason to distrust the building of this project.

At Town Meeting the neighbors expressed concern about the potential traffic situation on Chestnut Street. Chestnut is allegedly a standard sized street, but it seems as narrow as a country lane in Vermont. Part of the reason is that stonewalls and shrubbery are located very close to the shoulder of the road. Years ago the Historical Commission tried to have the street declared a scenic road so I'd never want to remove the old walls to widen the street or put in unnecessary sidewalks, but I think if we really listened to the neighbors their concern was that visitors to the fields would park along the street making it too narrow to use. I agree, but let's trust the town to do the traffic and parking studies necessary to make this work. As explained to me there is certainly room to expand the parking area if it is needed.

There's a big difference between irrational  or self-serving distrust and Ronald Reagan's famous formulation "doveryai, no proveryai." Trust, but verify.