For those who attended the Alexian’s Forum for Candidates Tuesday night, we were all asked our opinions on question number five: Do you support preserving and protecting Signal Mountain parkland by granting conservation easements on these lands to a Land Trust?
Twenty four hours prior to the forum, a decision on a resolution to sign a contract was made by three of the five Signal Mountain town councilmember’s to pass the land trust.
This decision is now part of our government and Signal Mountain town history for now. Dick Gee and Bill Wallace, both Republicans, voted against the Land Trust, Annette Allen, Susan Robertson and Bill Lusk are all three Democrats and voted for the land trust. It would seem on the surface to be a partisan vote.
Like all voting experiences, we have to learn from these decisions and abide by them.
I am proud to have challenged the land trust because I know for a fact, our disagreements made the final, final, final agreement much, much better than it was in just one month of additional discussions. Just think how much better it would have been with more time, but there was a rush to vote on it now. There were no printed final agreements made available in any sizable quantity at the town meeting on the day of the vote.
It just was blind luck by a technicality on the town manager's part, this resolution was not voted on one month ago. This version is a bit more palatable with less legal liabilities to the town and the additional ability for residents to benefit from non-invasive energy technologies that original version prohibited.
The best way I can explain the failure of this decision from many citizens is that this is exactly like the annexation process. A few people get to make decision for a majority of the community. Another analogy would be like handing our federal park systems over the United Nations to protect it.
Fortunately we live in a very conservative state. The State of Tennessee recognized the statewide annexation problem and passed the annexation referendum mandate which stopped the urban sprawl on smaller communities without referendum. Maybe our state legislators will now critically look at the finality of private land trusts placing easements on municipal public lands by referendum as well.
The real fact is we are coming up on 100 years of positive protection and previous growth of our park lands with each land donation Signal Mountain receives. We have 97 parks and 12 of the largest were part of this decision.
We don’t need to privatize our government and we didn’t need to privatize our park lands.
No matter how noble a cause that is anointed by any member of the electorate in the future, we should be able to always walk away from any decision feeling like that the majority has spoken. That should have included this land trust decision.
Monday night a decision was made without the benefit of a referendum and without polling a majority over a four year period. No matter how many community meetings was held on the matter, no official polling was done because they knew this was not a popular decision. There were 22 official emails for or against almost equally, that could be even considered a poll over a four year period that was in the official record.
The only petitions that were submitted were submitted the day of the scheduled vote. We managed to get nearly 120 submitted against the land trust with less than a week’s worth of effort once the land trust was artfully placed back on the agenda. That is a horrible indictment of how poorly this polling was conducted over a four year period.
The crucial element of majority rule is the hallmark of the democratic process. The democratic process is what was defeated Monday night. The democratic process to represent the majority is the fabric of the American form of government.
The test of that decision is one of the concerns what this election will determine. The decision pointed out to the voting residents of Signal Mountain that we need a major change in our state charter to prevent a minority for making decisions for a majority.
On at least five different occasions in the past eight months, the town attorney reiterated that we do not have a process to allow certain issues of a charged nature to be put to a referendum.
How do we prevent this kind of decision in the future made for us by a select few without everyone feeling part of the process?
The only way to prevent others in the future from capitalizing on a very serious flaw in the town of Signal Mountain’s legislative process is to critically look at our how our local government is authorized to make decisions to represent the majority.
A referendum process allows for three focused elements that we do not have now.
Referendums allows for a majority to vote on an issue
Referendums allows for a wider degree of participation in our local government by wider public identification of an issue.
Referendums forces us to be better informed in a timely manner to make decisions by increasing public discussion outside of an organized forum.
There have been many, many changes over 100 years in how the town of Signal Mountain operates. We used to have commissioners. We used to vote for the town mayor independently. In the past, our town administrator was not called a town manager and that that role had different duties to our present day role.
We now have a town council and as the mountain gets larger and we have to give thought to districts for fair representation to all the micro-communities that make up Signal Mountain.
Our current majority town council should be congratulated on winning their position and being good students of our current town’s form of government. I ask the voters of Signal Mountain to reflect on what was won and what was lost.
I have been accused by Annette Allen and Susan Robertson of using this land trust for political posturing. Whether I win or whether I do not win this election is really inconsequential as that decision is determined by the voters by a true democratic referendum vote, not me personally.
My wife has some medical limitations and would be happier if I didn’t win, so I can spend more time with the family, my business and take care of my many volunteer activities. But my campaign is a lifetime conviction of my many concerns with the town.
Some of those current concerns listed here briefly in regards to how businesses fail to function efficiently on Signal Mountain due to prohibitive ordinances, the planning commission and changing the town charter to include businesses, also secure by resolution how we make decisions regarding the SRO program in the future, improve volunteer connections again with the MACC with the return of hodgepodge and improve basic community information flow with an electronic town bulletin board located centrally or in the shopping district.
The only reason I am running for government for the town of Signal Mountain is to simply champion the democratic process, not to ultimately wear another hat. I can tell you up to now, challenging the current majority is rewarding in itself. Sharing my opinions in an electoral capacity tends to resonate at a critical time with a louder trumpet leaving lasting impressions with our conservative mountain voters.
Hopefully, in the very near future we can all walk away from all future contentious decisions with a clear conscious that the majority has spoken with a referendum process in place.
My final request is to ask all of the successful candidates who do win this election, to fix this glaring referendum problem in our town charter so we can move forward to our 100 year anniversary in 2019 with a true democratic process in place.
Dr. Robert Spalding
Candidate