I admit to feeling more than a little anxious walking into Plainfield Town Meeting this year (Saturday, March 18). I love the New England tradition of Town Meeting and I love my town of Plainfield, so I always look forward to these meetings — but with mixed feelings. Some Town Meetings are more challenging than others and this one was promising to be one we’d remember for many years to come. Would I leave this meeting feeling incredibly proud of my town, as I did after a particularly long and emotional Town Meeting in 2010 when we took up the issue of marriage equality? Or would I leave here feeling sick because my friends and neighbors in the town I’ve called home since 1998 had just voted to close down one of our town’s two libraries?
I was pretty sure that after listening to all the logical arguments that were sure to be made about why we should continue supporting both of Plainfield’s libraries, voters would do the right thing and vote down the petition article to close one. We did hear logical arguments, and those alone probably would have been enough to ensure the article’s failure. However, more than logic was at stake here, and what we heard loud and clear was how much people love this town and how much both libraries mean to so many. We’ve been arguing over our libraries for the last few years, but for most of us it’s been something that’s been happening in the background and it’s definitely not something I ever wanted to get involved in. Anyone who’s been around small-town politics knows that you enter that arena very much at your own risk. When one of our current library trustees told me she was going to run for the library board, my reply was, “Are you kidding? Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?” Her response at the time was, “How hard can this be?” She has plenty of scars to show now (and she’s not the only one).
The town of Plainfield has two libraries to serve about 2,500 residents and our 2017 budget is around $150,000. The math tells me we pay about $60 per resident. (I know our tax system doesn’t exactly work that way and that our town administrator, Steve Halleran, could explain what that looks like in terms of the property tax for the owner of the “mythical” $250,000 house in town.) In doing my homework to prepare for Town Meeting, I looked at Grantham’s library spending to see if ours was somehow really out of whack. Grantham has about 3,000 residents and voters there approved a budget of about $226,000 for 2017, or some $75 per resident. It seems like we’re getting a pretty good deal at $60 per resident, especially when you consider we have two libraries.
I’m not a big user of library services, but I’m a huge supporter of libraries. I have fond memories of going to my local library growing up in Ohio and of library story hours here in the Upper Valley when I was a parent of young children. My use now is limited, though, so if I couldn’t check out a book right down the road, it wouldn’t be a huge deal for me. But this isn’t about me and what I need. This is about supporting access to information as part of a vital public service that can mean the most to our most vulnerable neighbors.
When it came time to talk about Article 8, we heard heartfelt stories about the importance of libraries, especially for our seniors and kids. More than once we heard about how important it is for seniors to have a library relatively close by (our libraries are some 6 and 1/2 miles apart). A gentleman I didn’t recognize spoke of how important both libraries are to his family. He talked about taking his kids to the free library programs when the family fell on hard times and that was something that they could do with their kids when they couldn’t afford much else. I sat and listened to these stories and was left speechless.
To her credit, the resident who brought the petition article before the town also really listened to these stories and asked to withdraw the motion. I’ll take her at her word when she said that she didn’t intend to cause division in town and that she “may have been misguided” in being the voice for people who didn’t see a need for two libraries. After the current and former moderators huddled like NFL officials reviewing a challenge on the football field, it was determined the motion couldn’t be withdrawn but that we could “put it on the table.” During several minutes of confusion, we all kind of looked around at each other wondering and asking, what exactly did that mean? When it was explained that it could be “taken off the table” later on, we said “no” to tabling it. The people came to Town Meeting to debate and vote on Article 8!
Many of my friends and neighbors in Plainfield felt that what was driving Article 8 was just plain mean-spiritedness. I count myself among those who believed that at least some of the fewer than 30 people who signed the petition did so because they wanted to close the Meriden Library down out of spite. As was reported in the Valley News, “Selectboard member Ron Eberhardt gave an example of what some believe demonstrated the ‘spite’ that has poisoned the library controversy. Eberhardt said a person who attended and sat through a recent library trustees meeting knew it was improperly warned but said nothing until the next day when the town attorney was contacted. ‘I don’t understand the adversarial relationship,” said Eberhardt. ‘I hope we can work together.’ ” I wonder how much we — the taxpayers in Plainfield — are spending on the town attorney these days on petty matters like this. Also as reported in this newspaper, resident Kesaya E. Noda made a plea for unity in saying, “We have to help each other. We don’t want this behavior in this town anymore. Let’s end it right now. No more meanness, no more spite.” I couldn’t have said it better.
As to where that mean-spiritedness, or spite, or however you characterize it, comes from, I’m not entirely sure. What I am sure of, though, is that it’s palpable. People who have lived here much longer than I tell colorful stories of division over the “two sides of town” going back to at least the 1970s. Recent turmoil over adopting a combined library board and a mediation agreement between a long-time librarian and the town have perhaps fanned those embers from years ago when the challenges facing residents included where to locate Plainfield’s school or town offices. We need to somehow move past this divisiveness, come together as a community and support each other, and that includes our town employees, our Selectboard and, yes, even our elected (and unpaid) library trustees.
People all over the Upper Valley have been scratching their heads and asking, “What the heck is happening in Plainfield?” Well, what happened in Plainfield at Town Meeting was that we — the voters — expressed our strong support for both of our libraries. What also happened at Town Meeting was that we — the voters — answered meanness and spite with a resounding “No More!” Article 8 was decisively voted down 225-29 by the people of Plainfield.
Karen Anikis is a resident of Plainfield.