On June 9, two of us – Watertown residents Bruce Coltin and Josh Rosmarin — spoke at the City Council’s public forum to present our case for the City to commission a polling organization to better determine where residents stand on major issues.
Here are the texts of our two-minute comments.
From Bruce Coltin:
For almost every local election that I can remember, I falsely believed that that election would be the breakthrough election – the one where voters would turn out in record numbers.
In Watertown, non-voters have been an overwhelming majority to the tune of about 75%.
In our most recent election, the percentage of non-voters rose to just under 80%.
That level of non-participation is reflected at most Council meetings, committee meetings, and special meetings.
In Watertown, as in many other cities and towns, too many major consequential decisions are made with declining public input.
At a meeting at the Middle School regarding the Watertown Square Area Plan, a resident came to the microphone and said this to the council, the planning board, and the city manager:
“You published the results of a poll of a sort that attracts primarily activists. Would you be willing to commission a polling organization to do a randomized poll of the residents of Watertown?”
I think our system, where the vast majority of our residents are sitting on the sidelines is a broken system, and I think that serious people who truly believe in a healthy, robust democracy should want to fix it.
And here’s what we should have learned over the past few years: it won’t get fixed by expecting them to come to you.
Commissioning a polling organization to conduct randomized polling of the residents of Watertown would give you a mechanism by which you could ask those who don’t vote why they don’t vote and why they don’t come to meetings. You could ask them lots of questions — like how they feel about dropping a parking garage and a couple hundred apartment units into the CVS parking lot.
Maybe the very first thing you should ask them is simply how they are doing during these trying economic times.
Their answers might be illuminating and the very act of reaching out might be the first step in fixing the broken relationship between our government and the people you are supposed to represent.
From Josh Rosmarin:
Thanks Bruce.
I also want to share my support for a citywide poll of residents’ views as a way to improve our civic discourse.
I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Bruce better over the past few months, and while he and I have a number of substantive disagreements, one thing that unites us is a desire to see our community thrive. We believe that that’s a common view held across involved citizens in Watertown, regardless of what side of an issue we might find ourselves on.
However, Bruce and I have both noticed that, in the search for that thriving community, there are times when lacking a common frame of reference can present barriers to collaboration and compromise.
For instance, I was motivated to co-found a housing advocacy group because I wanted to work with my friends and neighbors to address the cost of living in Watertown. In the course of our work, I’ve also encountered my share of neighbors who disagree with what we’re doing. That’s completely fine!
What presents a challenge is when questions about who represents whom in town get in the way of productive discourse. We of course have biennial elections to sort that out at a high level, but what’s challenging is when there’s a more fundamental disagreement about what the majority of
residents stand for. We have academic research from people like BU professor Katherine Einstein showing that certain types of people — homeowners, older residents, white people — are overrepresented in community engagement processes. But while well-organized activist groups can try to address those imbalances, I’d be the first to acknowledge that the people who engage in long-term community activism are outliers, too.
So we’re left with a conundrum – how do we really know what the community wants, and how can we assess that in a way that everybody in the community believes to be valid? This is why Bruce and I, despite our differences, are strong believers in a more rigorous assessment of community sentiment than we’ve had to date. A citywide poll of residents’ top priorities and concerns can shed valuable light on where city leaders should prioritize time and effort.
Even with the best of intentions, our community engagement processes often fall short of reaching and representing everyone, and I’m hopeful that City Councilors and the city administration will work with us to establish this as a tool to better understand our city.
Thank you.
We invite you to join us on our mission to include more of the Watertown community in the making of decisions that will affect Watertown residents for years to come. You can start by contacting your district and at-large councilors and the Council President and voicing your support for this initiative to introduce rigorous, objective polling on issues that affect all of
us. https://www.watertown-ma.gov/350/City-Council
Bruce Coltin and Josh Rosmarin
Watertown Residents
So we are to govern our communities based on polling information? That’s a hard no.
Paul,
You’re talking about this like it’s not already being done. We’ve had much less reliable and biased polls run by our City (some where even non Watertown residents can vote and multiple inputs by a single person count to decide things like what our city center should become and a new City logo. They’re all run by our City government and their well paid consultants, and the results also happen to all coincide with our City Manager’s point of view.
We’ll be told that it’s too much money to conduct a legitimate poll, all while spending a quarter of a million dollars on plans for a parking garage in the Square without prior assent of Watertown residents (and, in fact, with the City acknowledging that there was great resident opposition to a garage).
Isn’t it about time that we do this right?
Linda Scott, resident
Linda we elect officials to make these decisions with professional and community input. Frankly, it sounds like the people who don’t support the decision are always looking for ways to delay or stop things they don’t like. Polling is a waste of money in these cases. We are dealing with a similar issue in Medway where I live now; the community is rising up against an unpopular development proposal. No polling needed.
I have been involved in Watertown in many ways, from PTO at various schools, to youth soccer and basketball and a city commission. In those experiences there are always a few people that get involved to drive the particular organization. The bylaws of those groups/commission are a limiting factor and the group has the focus of making the organization work best for the whole.
In our city, our council should be looking out for the best for its residents. Four of our Councilors represent a portion of the city while four others plus the President look at the city as a whole. However, with our size (approximately four square miles), it is difficult for our district Councilors to not be aware of issues throughout the city.
But how do our nine representatives know what all of the residents want or need? Most likely it is through interaction with a few of the more active and vocal community members that support them. I have always been impressed with the amount of work our Councilors do with regard to big issues, but then again as Josh and Bruce have mentioned, it is the vocal minority that get heard. It is these groups that have the ear of our council.
There are currently issues in Watertown that may change the nature of our city, some may be good and some may be bad depending on your perspective. Should these positions be driven by the vocal few or by the majority of its residents?
I see a town-wide poll of registered voters as a way to allow those, who don’t have the time due to family needs or the physical ability to attend meetings that can be long and demanding, to be heard. It is just another tool for our councilors that may be more encompassing than “table talks” or “coffee with a councilor.” Why not try it?
Spending a quarter of a million dollars on plans for a parking garage in the Square without prior assent of Watertown residents is a shocking thing to hear.
What pray tell did all that money get spent on?
That money should have gone into fixing, No actually Properly fixing Winter St.
There has been way too much neglect of our area streets behind the library.
If there is going to be a parking garage, it should be the area behind where the Santander bank was. I bet some high school people could do some sketches for a lot less than a quarter million.
If people don’t vote or come to city meetings or sign up for city notifications or engage with their government in any way…then they most likely know nothing about any issues that are current.
Polling people who are not engaged will get you what? A lot of uninformed opinions. And then we use those to make govt decisions? I don’t think so. Waste of time and money.
The city’s website is vastly better than it was 5 years ago and there is loads of info easily available. Citizens have to take some responsibility to learn about what’s going on.
In my experience, people will get involved when an issue affects them or their property. Otherwise, most will leave decisions up to the elected and hired help. Polling will not change that.
Hi Marcia,
Were you at the Council President’s meeting on June 5th? If you were, I’m sure that you heard even people who are accustomed to attending meetings and trying to pay attention to what’s going on in the City are having trouble following.
One of the frequent (and Open Meeting Law violations) is to omit the actual documents that will be discussed at that meeting from the City website, leaving the participating public in the dark.
One of the latest snafu’s (and also an Open Meeting Law violation): There was a second meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals that was open for public comment on nothing more important than what the plans are for the Watertown Mall.
When the ZBA Chair asked if there were any commenters on Zoom, she seemed surprised to hear that there were none. As a matter of fact, there was only one Zoom attendee. I tried to attend, but couldn’t. I’m wondering if that had anything to do with the fact that the announcement for that meeting on the City website contained the agenda for a meeting for another committee, not the ZBA? The public could not access that meeting to comment on Zoom!
It goes on…I have stories!!
But to get back to your comment about people being at fault for not participating, how do you square that with the Watertown Square garage example? This came up at the Watertown Square meetings, where hundreds of residents attended.
Many people (I believe close to 50%) who attended those meetings DID express a dislike and concern for the garage idea, and instead of the City (and councilors?) pursuing it further, we were told by Jeff Speck, the consultant, sorry…all of those people opposing a garage are wrong…we’re the experts! And then the City Manager requested (and got) a quarter of a million dollars from our Council for planning a “demonstration project,” involving a garage.
What could be wrong here???