AN INSIDE LOOK
By Bill Gouveia
If there is one
thing (other than New York) that New Englanders seem to truly dislike, it is regionalization. It's a concept that
just doesn't fly here, particularly when it relates to local government.
A perfect example
is the recent collapse of the Crossroads Veterans Services District, a joint
effort by Easton, Norton, Mansfield and Foxboro to combine efforts to serve
veterans in each community. It started
with Easton and Norton working together and sharing personnel, and seemed to
gain steam when Mansfield and Foxboro also joined in.
But the
organization’s death came quickly and abruptly when Easton selectmen voted to
withdraw primarily for “cultural reasons” two weeks ago. Mansfield
and Norton followed suit shortly thereafter, and each town will presumably go
back to hiring its own veteran’s agent and maintaining its own office, staff and workload.
That will be good
news to some veterans who never liked the initial creation of the
district. Some believed it was better
for each town to have its own agent and focus solely on those needing help
within its borders. They saw
regionalizing the service as a sign of weakness rather than strength.
But that response
was much more emotional than fact-based.
In many instances it was the perception rather than the reality of the
situation that bothered folks. How can
you seriously say you are serving veterans well when you don't even have your
own agent, they asked. To some extent it
was a matter of pride.
But the truth is
- it shouldn't be. The district was a
good idea. It allowed for a pooling of
resources, expanded availability of personnel, created better access for
veterans, and could have save money at the same time. But it is now dead, and there are several main
reasons why.
In Massachusetts,
our municipalities and their citizens are very parochial. We take great pride in having our own local
services, and staffing them with our own local officials. Then we can either complain about how bad
they are or brag about how good they are.
But we still have them, and that's what counts.
In most of the
rest of the country, regionalization is a way of life. County government (that's real county
government, not the corrupt and self-serving excuse for county government that
exists here) usually runs things like schools, police and fire, highway and
public works departments. Towns still
maintain their individual identities, but share the tax burden across a wider
base.
But not
here. Sure, we have a few regional schools
that do a good job. But most of our
county services are overlapping with state and local government. Their budgets are something we are assessed,
rather than decide.
And our political
landscape is such that being efficient on a regional basis is almost
impossible. In fact, most of our laws
discourage this very thing. They are
more concerned with creating paid positions for political appointees than
giving the taxpayers the best value for their tax dollars.
That was pretty
much what killed the Crossroads Veterans District. State laws may well have prevented it from
being run in the manner the founders originally planned. It began to take on all the characteristics of
yet another bloated bureaucracy, complete with soaring budget planning and political
complications.
By most accounts,
that really became a problem when Foxboro became very active in the
district. The aggressiveness of both
Town Manager Kevin Paicos and others in trying to expand the budget and reshape
the philosophy was largely responsible for breaking up the group. Though it was not stated publicly, it was
pressure and politics from Foxboro that drove out Easton and ultimately ended
the experiment.
The fact is towns
in Massachusetts just don't seem to play well with others. Regionalization needs to stop being
considered a sign of weakness and start becoming a natural thing. Mutual aid has long been a tradition when it
comes to local police and fire departments, but it must go further in all areas
of government.
Becoming less
provincial and more productive should be an admirable goal. With cooperation from state and local authorities,
regionalization could make that happen.
But it will only become reality when citizens start caring about and demanding
it.
Bill Gouveia is a local columnist and can be emailed at aninsidelook@aol.com and followed on Twitter at
@Billinsidelook.
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