Governance rightly understood

“Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today, the art of politics and politics of art compete for attention from 5 to 7 at Town Hall on Camino de la Placita, where the community celebrates its own master cartoonist, Bill Baron, while just across the street on Civic Plaza Drive, the Town Council will consider the fate of its manager, Rick Bellis. It is a virtual certainty that Baron will be on hand to greet his fans, and Bellis will have plenty of supporters in house, due to el Mitote, now prompted by social media and not a little hysteria. As Baron’s character, the custodian, whom I call Flavio, says about the town’s unofficial executive policy, “they come, they go.”

You might ask what gives? I believe, in general terms, there’s a difference in interpretation of the manager’s perceived style of communication and not a little paranoia. As a supporter of Councilors Hahn and Cantu, and Mayor Barrone, I knew then and know now that I made the right choices. I have confidence in how they vote. Each of the three may misunderstand the other but the process of democracy is a kind of dialectic or question and answer conversation, a trial and error process. All three of the elected ones want the best for the community and are figuring out how to achieve that aim. Regardless of today’s decision, the Town Council and Mayor are moving away from the prior administration’s concept of “self-interest selfishly understood” toward a new and brighter era of governance or “self-interest rightly understood” i.e. the best interests of the community.  The holdovers appear to be operating according to the older paradigm.

As T. S. Eliot writes in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, “Do I dare/Disturb the universe?/In a minute there is time/ For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” Each councilor like each voter must decide but the decisions in democracy aren’t final. We are all working it out together.