What Local Government Teaches Us
The other night, I did something I hadn’t done in a longtime — I went to my local town council meeting. Before the meeting, I had been outside flyering with fellow South Jersey Progressive Democrats. We hit a bunch of local council meetings over the course of a few days, asking people to join us in advocating for a fair US Senate endorsement process.
In Collingswood, the flyering was a bust because no one, I learned, goes to these meetings. Since I was outside flyering, I went in. It would have felt irresponsible not to, I thought, a bad citizen move.
But I wasn’t prepared for the scene I walked into. Municipal employees sat to one side, as per usual. There was a member of the press and someone operating a video camera. Mayor, council, and municipal solicitor were up at the dais behind their name placards.
Then there was a wide sea of chairs no one was sitting in, except one guy in the very back, in the very last chair. It was like going to see a play that was going to be performed to an empty house and apparently this in no way dampened the actors’ spirits in keeping up their roles.
I used to go to these meetings religiously, for years. And as I sat down at the meeting last night, I couldn’t help but feel like I was sitting down beside that earnest, apple cheeked version of myself who came to town council meetings with an innocent and utterly incorrect view of local government.
I didn’t think of it as politics, so much as “getting involved.” Good citizens get involved. They show up. They share their time, their talents, and the ideas they’re excited about. I was excited about backyard chickens. Now that’s the punchline of a joke I make during introductions at political organizing meetings. “What got me into Jersey politics? Chickens!” I’m still a little wistful for that former self who was just “getting involved.” Yes, she was naive but she was also trying to show up in a whole hearted way, in an open hearted way.
There were some meaty issues on this town council meeting’s agenda. The mayor of Collingswood is redeveloping two new sites in town and each will come with a tax abatement — which means less dollars to our schools and more of the tax burden shifted onto residents. A whole gaggle of politically connected firms with a history of cronyism and pay to play practices got new municipal contracts.
When the mayor asked “does anyone want to be heard on these items?” I thought of Connor, Strong and Buckelew (George Norcross’s firm, awarded a Collingswood contract) bilking Pennsauken out of $1.6 million. I thought of the state comptroller’s report on tax abatements, urging caution against overuse. But there’s a difference between speaking words aloud in a room and being heard. I had an equal or better chance of bringing these political concerns to my cat and being heard.
One thing local government has taught me is that local politics are, well, politics. It’s not that “getting involved” doesn’t exist but it’s an extremely narrow path. It’s a matter of joining the retinue, doing nice things that yield photo ops or media clips for power holders. “Getting involved” is a matter of running someone else’s plays, implementing other people’s ideas, and there’s nothing wrong with that if it satiates. But bringing forward new ideas that don’t originate from power holders and working to set them in motion, that’s not getting involved. That’s organizing.
The guy who was sitting in the very back of the room had come to the meeting in the same spirit as former me. After talking about his appreciation of the community, he advocated for murals in town. Over the years, the mural idea has been brought up in Collingswood again and again and has always been quashed as has other public art.
The mayor said he was “looking into it,” the same line he routinely offered up during my chicken organizing years, mentioned something about talking to the mayor of Metuchen, but repeated that the problem was that people might just paint whatever they want. If murals were allowed, somebody might paint a swastika. It was a weird thing to immediately go to — disallowing murals because people might engage in hate speech. But it’s a response I’ve seen again and again from local government — right out of the gate, finding reasons why a resident’s idea won’t work.
I don’t know if the guy advocating for murals will be back to another council meeting, if he’ll be propelled into organizing the way I eventually was. He may do what so many do, for understandable reasons — decide the meetings are not a place for new ideas, decide new ideas aren’t welcome, and give up, stop coming back.
Recently, a handful of different progressive allies told me they were done going to their local government meetings. They couldn’t. They just could not. It was too frustrating, too futile, too confrontational, too depressing. I had to bite my tongue. I wanted to say, but you have to! You’re the voice in the room for ethics, for innovation, for the people! I didn’t say any of this because I knew it would be selfish. Going to these meetings was clearly not good for their mental health.
I’ve been to more than my fair share of bad government meetings over the years. I’ve been to county meetings where millions of taxpayer dollars were spent in mere seconds via consent agenda. I’ve seen state reps traverse through the statehouse’s secret backroom passages to avoid interacting with folks out in the hallways, asking them to take a stand on a cause. And with federal officials, maybe you get some face time with staffers or maybe you visit their office and nobody’s home. All bad but I can’t help but feel that there’s something extra sad about small town government being so pro forma.
Even though local government never intended to, it taught me a lot. It taught the need for organizing and to be ready with a Swiss Army knife of tactics. It taught me about recruitment and messaging. It taught me that still, in this day and age, some men react to strong women with fear, rage, or an obsessive need to have the last word (or all of the above).
On that last point, I’ve often brushed it aside, felt compelled to just move on. I’ve often felt I had to absorb the shock and have worried about the attacks spilling over to the people I organize with. I’ve compartmentalized, I guess, separated sexist incidents into individual moments. I’ve laughed it off — like the time a twenty something told me he went to his local Democrat club, thinking to get involved, and discovered the whole agenda was what do to about Kate Delany. While the planet burns and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, a political meeting focused on one woman they hate!
Though I’ve downplayed the sexism I’ve encountered in politics, a switch flipped in my mind just the other day, when the Pennsauken Democratic Committee chairman stood inches from my face and yelled, “Dear, you know nothing about politics! You know nothing at all, Dear!” It brought back a montage of memories, including an encounter with a federal level politician who responded to my advocacy by getting so close to my body he could have been about to kiss me or shove me to the ground. The nonverbal message in these encounters is clear: I’m bigger than you and I could hurt you if I wanted to. I’ve never seen a male politician do this to any men I organize with.
Overall, it was a hell of a hazing but the organizing that began with local government took me to great places, to a job I love and to bigger, better regional grassroots organizing. It’s taught me to consciously chose hope and joy as well as calm and pause. To paraphrase a progressive friend, even if you step away from the work, you can always step back because the work is always there. The work never goes away!
I guess the truth be told, I still don’t know what to do about local politics. Once you snap out of thinking you can just show up and inject a spirit of dialogue and fresh ideas and you accept it’s all organizing, then everything is an issue campaign or a site fight. Local politics makes you pick your battles as well as your battleground. Murals, crosswalks, climate chaos, war in Gaza — the tough part is it all matters. The more years I spend in organizing, the more I believe that the right place to begin is anywhere and the more I appreciate those who despite all the reasons to give up and tune out still keep the faith and chose action.
