To the Editor:

It is a well-known fact that there is much our Berne Town Board has done this year with which I disagree.  I have frequently and publicly made it known.

But I also want to give credit where credit is due, and I am writing this letter to publicly thank Councilwoman Bonnie Conklin as well as Councilman Joel Willsey for standing up for the residents and taxpayers of our town twice at last Wednesday’s town board meeting.

First, during the middle of the meeting was Joel’s motion, Bonnie’s second, and their votes in favor of replacing the town attorney (see last week’s article, “Berne town and planning boards clash while attorney defends apparent lie”).

Then, just before adjournment, was Bonnie’s motion, Joel’s second, and their votes in favor of allowing public comments at town board meetings. In both cases, these motions and votes took no small amount of courage to put forth.

They show a commitment to ethical behavior from themselves as board members, as well as from those who work for them. For that I thank Bonnie and Joel from the bottom of my heart.  Sadly, they were outvoted on both issues by councilmen Mat Harris and Dennis Palow, and Supervisor Sean Lyons.

Continuing to employ the services of an attorney who apparently lies in order to intimidate a planning board chair is bad enough. Refusing to allow the public to comment at town board meetings is in many ways worse.

It has been many months since public comment has been allowed at Berne Town Board meetings, and one has to wonder why. Town government, like all levels of government, functions best when operated as Abraham Lincoln and others before him described: of the people, by the people, and for the people.

In order for a government to function that way, the elected representatives have to both hear and actually listen to their constituents. Our elected officials are not our “leaders,” a term so often misapplied it has become mainstream, as if we are supposed to just blindly follow them wherever they may go.

No — they are our representatives. They work for us, and they are supposed to represent us in turn for the privilege we have given them through the electoral process that allows them to serve the people of the town in which they live.

The type of representation that I like to think of as “active representation,” a regular back-and-forth flow of information and conversation between representatives and the people they represent, is especially important during this time of pandemic and lockdowns when many are feeling isolated and unheard, unable to meet with their representatives at the town hall or casually talk with them at the usual mutually frequented public places.

The only place for this active representation to take place is at town board meetings, whether they be in person or via Zoom. Berne has the technology to allow public comment at meetings, as evidenced by holding public hearings and allowing comments at those hearings.

There is no way a town board can honestly or adequately do its job without hearing and carefully considering the thoughts of the people whom they serve on all issues, not just proposed local law

 It is clear that Bonnie and Joel understand this and wished to reverse the never-voted-upon policy that has quashed public comment at town board meetings. One is forced to wonder — do Mat, Dennis, and Sean not understand, or do they simply not care?

That is the stuff in which tyrannies are birthed. An over exaggeration? Perhaps. But every quest for overreaching power over a people starts small, and it always starts with shutting them up.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.”

It’s time to start thinking about electing a supervisor and town board members who believe that as well.

Dawn G. Jordan

Berne

Editor’s note: Dawn G. Jordan was a Berne councilwoman who did not seek re-election last November.

See related story.