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To the editor:
It seems like things keep happening in Ipswich even though no one wants them to happen.
Consider the Bruni project, and countless ugly and water-guzzling housing developments before that. Consider the “How the Grinch Stole Choralfest” potluck incident and countless school-related sagas before that, all leaving parents bewildered and angry.
Whenever these things happen, someone will lament in the Facebook comments that we are turning into Saugus — or some other urban, under-tree’d and impersonalized part of the North Shore.
I have the same worry. But I can’t help but notice that often our reaction is one of passivity (“bad things happen to us and there’s nothing we can do about it”) or supplication (“Dear People-In-Charge: please DO SOMETHING about this!”).
I’m too young to remember, but apparently things were not always this way. According to Town Moderator Jim Engel’s excellent, sobering letter from earlier this month, attendees at Select Board meetings used to fill the room. Town Meeting quorum used to be higher. Over time, we the public abandoned our role as citizens and now act instead as spectators.
To be sure, there are some town officials who embrace this model of government.
Consider the public safety building. In mid-2023, when people began to point out that Pineswamp wasn’t the right location for the building, the Town’s project manager stated in an email that there was a need to “reeducate the public.” The Town then hired a PR firm, but despite that firm’s best efforts, it has become difficult to find people who still think the building should be at Pineswamp. Reeducation, clearly, was a failure. So town officials have instead pivoted to royal decree. “Not an option.” “The School Committee won’t allow it.” “Case closed.”
But what I’ve come to understand is that our woes are more than a matter of rogue officials. It is on me and you, too.
We can complain that things aren’t going the way we want. We can politely request that the Select Board change their minds. But the ultimate authority isn’t in the hands of the Select Board, the town manager, or the School Committee, but rather in yours and mine. As voters in an open-Town-Meeting system of government, we can do practically anything (within the limits of Massachusetts law).
But not if we don’t even show up.
Julian Colville
Ipswich
