Join the club

Jack Deatherage

(11/2024) The first board of commissioners meeting I attended was in October of 2016. Prior to that I had few interactions with elected officials or town staff, and those were generally unpleasant. I know Liz Buckman was sworn in as a first-time commissioner at that meeting. She convinced me to attend the ceremony as well as the Citizen Advisory Committee meetings she was assigned liaison duties to. Since then I've attended every meeting I could: Board of Commissioners, Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), Planning Commission, Parks and Recreation (P&R), and Board of Appeals in an attempt to understand how this town functions and why. I've yet to attend an Ethics Commission meeting because they are rare and the public is denied access to complaint hearings.

The first year of meetings I sat through were enlightening. Slowcoach ignoramus that I am, I still picked up on some important concepts. The primary one being the mayor and elected commissioners do not have the power I had previously believed they held. In fact, they are constrained by the town's codes, the county codes, the state of Maryland codes and federal law. Within those confines they are further constrained by the citizenry of the town!

"The citizenry of this place reeks of apathy" was the next large concept I observed. Somehow I've got it in my head there are around 1,200 registered voters in this place. If that's true, then the more than 1,000 votes not cast in the last election kinda proves the reek. This reek is further supported by asking Town Coordinator, Jess Housaman, how many people attended each recorded public meeting via Zoom- low single digits is not unusual. Which often matches the number of citizens sitting in the peanut gallery.

The CAC is made up of 10 members. According to the town's website, the committee is 2 members short and I don't think the current members have ever gathered in full at any meeting I've attended.

Parks & Rec is worse. Of the 9 seats, 2 are vacant and probably have been for years. I've attended P&R meetings where only the liaison commissioner and I showed up and I'm not a member!

There have been public meetings I've walked into and was asked if I was lost- so rarely does anyone attend the meetings if they don't have business before the committees.

"They're all the same." "They don't listen to us." "It's a club and we aren't in it." Are oft heard remarks concerning our elected officials and town staff. I certainly understand the apathy. Been there, done that- still wallow in it occasionally.

Before the water rates were increased Mayor Davis pleaded with the few angry citizens who suddenly managed to find time to attend that meeting for any suggestions as to how the town could avoid the increases. As I recall, no one offered an actionable suggestion. A year later when a workshop was held to gather new information with the goal of eventually easing the burden on water users (the mayor and commissioners aren't happy about paying the increases either) not a single one of those angry people bothered to show up in person, though one may have listened in via Zoom, but offered nothing.

"I'm too busy." "I have a job." "I have a family." "I have more important things to do than attend town meetings."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do the town staffers and the elected and appointed commissioners. Some of the commissioners I've spoken to spend nearly as many hours chasing down information -held by county, state and federal agencies- that they need to make the best decisions for the town as they do with their full-time jobs, only they aren't being paid by the town to do so. Yet most citizens are too busy to drive across town to attend a one or two hour meeting that might affect the rest of their days in this place? Sure, they're too busy.

When I'm one of the few citizens that constantly attends the public meetings guess what happens. Staff and commissioners begin asking for my opinions. I've even been asked to formally join various committees. That should terrify those better educated and wiser than I who do not attend the meetings!

2025 is the year the state requires Emmitsburg to submit a new comprehensive plan. As I understand the plan it will be the town's guideline for growth until the year 2040. Guess how many people turned out for the citizen input part of the plan. Six or seven, and at least one of them lives out of state but has a business in town. Over 2,000 residents will have to deal with the decisions a small handful of people make. Seriously? Oh, the town's idiot of record was also in attendance, though I mostly just listened to everyone else speak their minds. So much for none of the staff or the elect and appointed listening to the people.

I've a Groucho Marx view of clubs, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

I'm not a guest in any commissioner's home. I'm in no way, shape or form "in the club". Still, I'm planning an expansion of the Cedar Avenue Community Garden now that the town has decided the state's farmers market program simply does not work for Emmitsburg- a fact I've mentioned to the mayor and commissioners several times this year. I doubt my thoughts did more than confirm their own research and observations, but listen to me they did.

I also mentioned a failed attempt by the former administration to bring tourists to town via Gary Casteel's National Civil War Memorial and his proposed statue of John Armstrong to Mayor Davis and commissioners Boehman-Pollitt and Turnquist who are now awaiting detailed plans on those projects. Would the mayor and commissioners have thought to approach Casteel about those projects? Possibly, but they've had more immediate issues to deal with and Casteel was unaware the town had a new mayor and several new commissioners. All I did was connect the parties. I's smaaart enough to manage that.

I've tossed other ideas at past and current mayors and commissioners concerning the history of this place and how it can be used to make the town a tourist draw. Have those in positions to make things happen taken my suggestions seriously? I don't know. I'm not "in the club". What I do know is the current government does listen to me. Which is really messed up. I'm just an idiot trying to make this burg a better place for the Offspring and his Chica, should they ever return.

I worry that after explaining how this town's idiot of record has helped make changes, small though they be, better educated, vastly more intelligent people than myself might show up at the various meetings and begin offering suggestions or making proposals that would cause the meetings to drag on past my bedtime. Worse! I'd have to try understanding what everyone is jabbering about and I struggle to follow what goes on at the meetings when almost no citizens are in attendance.

Then again, maybe nothing would change. The reek is strong in this place.