Here's What Mark Says About Why He Runs
These days with the skies brightening early I often get out at dawn to run near my home. I do it for all the usual reasons of health, breath, and trying to win one more battle in the War of the Waistline. While I’m out there, though, I have a bonus period of mental calm during which I can let my thoughts roam unhindered by E-Mail or the phone. While my knees pound along and my muscles strain I’m also detached, quietly going over things to come in my mind.
This year those thoughts have been focused on the run I’m planning to make for a seat on North Kingstown’s Town Council in the fall. I estimate I’ll spend a couple thousand dollars, maybe much of it mine. I’ll make and then put out a lot of lawn signs and write more pieces like this one to broadcast my message. I’ll take an enormous amount of time trying to meet people on their doorsteps, asking for their vote. I’ll also ask others to do the same thing on my behalf. The run will involve my whole family for much of September and October, and if I’m successful I’ll win the chance to attend two or three meetings a week sometimes, after a full day’s work to earn a living.
Some of the oncoming drivers that drift over to give me room as they go by must think I’m nuts to be out there running like that. They all have their personal challenges, though, just different ones than mine.
But one challenge we all share is keeping our government firmly in the grasp of our own hands. Doing that takes effort on everybody’s part. If we don’t put in that effort, things will start to fall apart. The exercise of real popular government brings health and breath to our whole community.
Whenever the headlines shout about politicians abusing power there’s a companion story that usually goes unreported. Offices are managed improperly when no one is looking. If the voters don’t stay in the game there’s no one to keep a decent scorecard and their public servants might become players of a different kind. When the people and their politicians get disconnected, bad things happen. To prevent that I’m happy to volunteer all the effort I’ll put into this fall’s campaign, and hopefully into holding the office if I win.
You have a few things to do, too, in this process and they’re every bit as important. You’ve got to start thinking about what kind of government you want in town, what kind of legislature you want in Providence, and what kind of schools you think we should have. You should think very seriously about supporting candidates that you agree with. That might mean writing a small check. It might mean letting a sign go up on your lawn. Or it might even mean taking a walk some Saturday afternoon this fall to tell your neighbors about someone you think they ought to consider for a vote.
It may not sound like as much effort as your candidates, but there are a lot more of you. Together we will combine to create that marvel of all the world, American Democracy in action. Last fall foreign forces attacked our country and there was an immediate sense that we all had to stand united. This fall there’s really something that you, yourself, can do to unite and strengthen our defenses against aggression: Be sure you’re registered to Vote and then be sure you’ve gone over all your choices so you cast that Vote thoughtfully.
If you see me tomorrow morning as I get to the top of Congdon Hill, sweating profusely and gagging for breath, don’t worry. You don’t have to run with me this summer. You do have to run with me this fall, however, because standing united means we’re all in this together.
For more than two years I’ve been concentrating on the details of many of the issues facing North Kingstown’s municipal government. When I ran for a seat on the Town Council in 2002 the specter of the Container Port still haunted the discourse over our future. Since then the critical issues dominating our attention have morphed through Water Use, Water Quality, surging Health Insurance costs, maintaining our Physical Assets, and the pain induced in many of us by the capricious unpredictability of our next Property Tax bill.
Behind the A List topics of concern, all the while, there continues to be a constant litany of ‘Boring but Important’ subjects to be dealt with by local government. These details of planning, zoning, or operational priorities have to be routinely and equitably treated lest they, too, suddenly mushroom into irritants in the stream of North Kingstown’s consciousness. And when all that’s done? Some time has to be set aside for forward thinking. What should the Post Road corridor look like ten years from now? In an Age of Economics how will we expand and maintain the Affordable Housing we must have if our town is to be home to a span of generations? Expansion of our Sanitary Sewer system means less pollution, but it also means more population density. How do we balance these conflicting concerns?
For those of us who volunteer to be the policy makers for our town its necessary to keep a broad view of our little corner of Rhode Island, and its also necessary to be able to focus right in on hot topics as they emerge. I try to sense the pulse of the place. I try to stay aware of the ebbs and flows of all our varying needs in the same way I’m aware of the tides, by taking the time to observe them as I pass through town each day. If I succeed, and if I’ve gained any maturity in a life just half lived so far, I believe I’m qualified to make the policy decisions our professional management needs as direction to keep local government flourishing.
Many in town have similar qualifications, though, so why am I the one that’s running?
It is not because I’m expected to. As chair of the Republican Town Committee I am expected to take a leadership role in presenting highly qualified candidates for the voter’s consideration. As an incumbent member of the Town Council many expect me to ‘Go Again’ perhaps just because I’m in position to do so. If I was simply bowing to expectations, however, I’d have a hollow candidacy and you would all be able to see that from across town.
The 2004 race for Town Council may be shaping up as a contest dominated by single-issue candidates. So far we have several who are running to right some wrong that they feel was done to them by the town. One targets the Town Manager, another the Chief of Police. Two apparently feel that the Planning Commission has abused them and we also have at least one conspiracy theorist. They all seem to believe that only by gaining a seat on the Council will they be able to fire the offending official or direct some change in the Town Charter that will rectify the injustice which propelled them into the race.
To my way of thinking so very narrow an area of interest on the part of some among our council candidates is a danger to the town. It threatens to subsume the routine discharge of town business by breaking down the deliberative process of give and take on the Council. Will it then be replaced by a flurry of ever more strident demands that one and only one issue be opened and re-opened again until a single member’s desired outcome is achieved? Are the citizens well served when votes are called out of fatigue rather than because satisfactory debate has been conducted?
While considering all this, let’s not start criticizing candidates just because they have a favorite issue.
I have a favorite issue. Over the course of the fall campaign you will be hearing my calls for a more rational method of determining Property Tax bills, and you’ll also be seeing a detailed proposal for how to do it. I strongly believe we will not be able to address capital growth needs here in North Kingstown until we first address the pain and suffering our present system forces on its taxpayers. But you will be hearing from me on many other issues, as well. I hope to incorporate the thousand concerns of our dozen or more neighborhoods into a coherent vision of how best to keep our town a true community in the years ahead. I hope you will share that vision because its benefits to you will be obvious, not because you’re driven by righteous indignation.
My experience in volunteer government has made me realize that many concerns have to be addressed, not just one, no matter how important it may be. I think it’s the responsibility of a Town Councilor to touch all parts of the patchwork of problems and projects that is the fabric of North Kingstown’s culture. It’s our responsibility to make that patchwork richer if we can. To do that the five members of the panel have to work together like colleagues. If they devolve into combatants, instead, I think the whole town will suffer.
Some of the single issues bandied about in this campaign will be attractive, worthy of Council attention, in fact. Some of the crusaders for these issues will be passionate and arresting in their zeal. If we let the discourse of town government become a monotone, though, I know we will all suffer.
So the reason I’m running is to provide a counterpoint to those who will tell you that Town Council business can only be conducted as a combat operation. I and my colleagues from the NK GOP present ourselves as proof, positive, that mature and businesslike citizens who are well informed on a broad range of local concerns can lead our town without crippling it in the process.
As always, the final decision on how our town government will function is yours. I urge you to use the opportunity of a lively season of campaign debate to take the measure of the many candidates who are asking for your vote. In your mind’s eye begin to envision the kind of responsive, citizen-oriented government you will demand in the two years ahead. Then imagine how each of the candidates you hear from would fit into that template. It is your responsibility to cast your vote with care to help craft the best local government North Kingstown can possibly have.
I hope it will then be my responsibility to deliver that government to you.
This Fall I will run in my third race for a seat on the North Kingstown Town Council. It will be my second as an incumbent. Looking back, I am proud of the series of issues I’ve been able to raise and highlight in our town’s public discourse. Those issues have changed continuously, though, even in the six short years I’ve been speaking out as Candidate and Councilman. There’s always something new facing North Kingstown, whether it’s a challenge or an opportunity.
Then it was opposition to the Container Port Proposal for Quonset, now it’s a series of pressing matters such as the Executive Search for a new Town Manager, the looming Contract Negotiations with our three Unions, or the struggle to finance needed infrastructure. Throughout all of that I’ve learned to keep my finger on the pulse of the people of our town in hopes of being informed on their desires when it comes time to make decisions that affect them.
How well have I kept in synch with the composite opinion of the 27, 000 citizens I represent? They are my most important reviewers on this point, and we’ll hear the latest from them on November 7th.
Meanwhile, I have a job to do. Whether I start with the Search, the Negotiations, or one of the various plans we have in play to make life better here in town it always comes down to the same thing: Money. Of course we want to provide the best possible executive leadership for our town. Of course we want to create a professional environment where our town employees can advance themselves while feeling the pride of providing ever better service to the community. Of course we want to have better roads, newer more efficient public safety facilities, and the latest in technology to serve our citizens. But for the third campaign in a row those of us on the Republican ticket will be adding the proviso that we want the best of all those things that we can afford.
For at least the last three sessions the Republican Majority on North Kingstown’s Town Council has lead that body to impose voluntary spending limits that have acted as controls on spiraling Property Tax Bills. The process has been made more complex by escalating market values that skew the relative burden from one type of property owner to another. Our careful budgeting has also suffered from external cost increases over which we have no discretionary control. We all know that feeling every time we stop at the gas pump but the town gets forced price increases that have commas in them.
So how do we control the tax burden while also building new Police and Fire Stations? That’s the crux of the problem we face today, both here in town and across the country. That’s the job that I feel I have yet to do before passing my seat on to the next citizen who will hold it.
I know what teenagers do when they want to buy something but their pockets are empty. They corner their parents for the cash. The Republican led Town Council here in North Kingstown has made a terrific effort to avoid acting like teenagers when it comes to the pocketbooks of the property tax payers. We have, instead, put our endorsement on a plan for reforming the system of calculating Property Tax Bills that will not only bring equity and predictability to the process but will also increase funding to the town. But passing a resolution in support is a far cry from seeing the plan enacted. That’s the job that I feel I have yet to do before passing my seat on to the next citizen who will hold it.
Do you feel that there’s a disconnect between the voters and their legislator’s up in Providence? Larry Ehrhardt does and he’s a Representative. That’s why he’s labored so mightily to bring some balance to the house chamber. That why we all should think about the need for that balance when we vote this fall. That’s why the carefully crafted Property Tax Reform legislation that was presented in this session died in a study committee. Enacting it would have enabled us to give our ideas a try. That’s the job that I feel I have yet to do before passing my seat on to the next citizen who will hold it.
So I am running again because I feel that I still have work to do.
There will always be more and more work to do on all the future issues that come streaming in to impact the running of our town in the years to come. If I can tackle the one’s I’ve targeted, though, I’ll feel as though something worthwhile has happened on my watch. I hope you agree, and if you do I hope you will support me again in this year’s election.
- Mark Zaccaria, Member, North Kingstown Town Council