Respecting the Voters

The new majority on the Randolph selectboard is playing with fire if it hopes to summarily dismiss the results of the Town Meeting vote on moving the municipal offices.

That much became clear when 25 angry citizens turned out for a hastily-scheduled special selectboard meeting Monday night, called to discuss, in executive session, some unnamed real estate option.

It should have been clear anyway. Citizens don’t like to see the results of their votes set aside.

Some 1413 people voted the issue at Town Meeting; and by a margin of 25 they gave approval to use previously-bonded money to move the town offices to the Pleasant Street former co-op food store. That is not a large margin, but to call it a "borderline vote," as Selectboard Chair Stephen Webster did the very next evening, was to demean the citizens’ efforts and preference. A week later, Selectman Ken Goss inexplicably said that the vote was "not a majority," although he withdrew that comment later. Selectman Joe Voci said he had doubts that the vote expressed "the will of the people." The people may have had the wrong information when they voted, he alleged—which is just another way of saying that they should have listened to his information and voted his way.

None of these comments are appropriate responses to the Town Meeting vote. Neither is Webster’s suggestion that the vote merely authorized the selectboard to do what it wants. There is no question but that the vast majority of voters thought they were voting either for Summer Street or Pleasant Street, not for some in-between position.

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That being said, the new selectboard ought to be allowed time and a modicum of good faith to study the question itself and come up with its own recommendations and reasons. Monday evening’s executive session, though hasty, was legally warned and probably not improper, though exactly what was talked about won’t be known until later.

If the new board can come up with a compelling argument for doing something other than what people voted for March 4—or if that solution is taken off the table by the owner—it has the legal option of calling yet another vote. But the board majority is going to have to convince townspeople that they have respect for their opinions. In that regard, they have made a very poor start.