Apathy

Image by Mark Sardella via Flickr

It's a constant source of wonder to me how people can go ape over various government issues but do zippo to try to solve the problems they yell about. For example, Town Meeting is where the voters decide how their money is to be spent by their Town and what by-laws should govern them. Yet here on Martha's Vineyard very few voters attend Town Meeting. In 2009 the town with the highest percentage was Aquinnah with 18%; Oak Bluffs had only 6.3%. As a result, each voter who attended was responsible for approving almost $80,000 of a town's budget; 1221 voters spent $93,000,000.

Another example: there are no contests for Town offices in West Tisbury. There are about twenty openings, none of which has a contest. There is even one where there is not a candidate. Other towns are not as bad, but, again, there are very few contests.

I've lived in a couple of places but, judged by letters to the editor of the local newspaper and overheard conversations, this is one place where no one and nothing is immune to criticism. And yet being a responsible citizen does not seem to be a fact of life here.