Declaring consensus without consensus

A so-called “consensus” decision to collect a new round of data on the town’s school buildings was pushed through Monday night by Mayor Maryann Welcome, despite the fact that there was actually no consensus to do so.

A plan to start the new data-collection committee was included on Monday night’s agenda of the Board of Selectmen, but nobody seemed keen to embrace the idea. Welcome reasoned that it would be prudent to find out how much it would cost the town to close a school building this year, since the board’s Republican minority has been calling for the move and claiming it will save as much as half a million dollars.

Minority selectmen Kenneth Fracasso and Glenn Albanesius, responded apathetically to Welcome’s overture, and even Democrat James DiVita said he wasn’t interested in serving on another committee. Suffice to say the response to the idea was less than lukewarm.

Board of Education Chairman Susan Hoffnagle also rebuffed the idea, noting that the school board had done its own extensive study of the town’s school buildings earlier this year. She said she would not serve on the committee if it is formed.

Fracasso  refused to serve on the committee, contending the result of its work would be a foregone conclusion. The selectman was correct in his assessment.

Even Welcome said she doesn’t believe closing a school will save money, so if no one wants to serve on a committee that is only going to affirm this answer for her, it seems the whole thing would be a waste of time. Any plan to close a school is, after all, a political — and maybe even illegal — impossibility this year.

Welcome seemed determined to get a school data-collection mission going Monday night, which she said would lay to rest any misconceptions about the potential savings or loss the town might see if it closes one of its three public schools. She correctly noted that Republicans on the board have offered absolutely nothing constructive to the budget process this year.

With the discussion headed toward a stalemate, Welcome decided she would make it the “consensus of the board” that selectmen would work to gather the school data in the next month and report back to the public on the potential savings involved in closing a school building. No one on the board objected, but it seemed clear that an actual consensus had not been reached.

The stalemate is likely to continue through the summer, as Republican selectmen have worked to avoid reasonable discussion, in favor of a more adversarial role. Mayor Welcome may be playing right into the Republicans’ hands by going on a fact-finding mission instead of just putting her foot down and saying “no” to the Republicans.

It seems like the millionth time this has been said, but the Democrats need to stand up for themselves and get this year’s budget passed instead of trying to build “consensus” with a hostile minority.