Hometown man, Greg Howes, will spend another three years on the Board of Selectmen. Being chair of the board as he currently is now and running for office at the same time is not an easy combination. Congratulations are in order.Howes came in with the second highest number of votes of the three candidates, showing well in all precincts, but winning only in one precinct, and then by a mere three votes.
Having grown up in West Concord, and having the family business there, we had anticipated he'd have garnered more of the Precinct 2 vote than he did. But Precinct 2 was nearly a three-way-tie. How this reflects on Howes' current leadership in the West Concord Task Force which is looking at the redevelopment of West Concord is worth pondering.
However, we note that Precinct 2 with the largest number of registered voters of all the precincts in Concord, had the largest turnout. We suspect this sends a clear message that local sentiment is highly divided about how the Town has been running of late, and that may be great uncertainty about the plans being expressed for West Concord village.
Howes still has a substantial amount of room to grow as an elected official, particularly in translating his business experience into how to work within a democracy. There has been great unhappiness expressed by many in the not-subtle ways he shifted "government by the people" away from the people in the interest of "efficiency." The practices of the BOS and Town Management under Howes' chairmanship of BOS appear to have soured some voters on his leadership. This includes new rules for citizen comments at BOS meetings, the BOS allowing the Town Manager to stonewall information requests and pay for lawyers to help him do so using taxpayer funding, and a continuing pattern of blindsiding citizens with controversial projects.
Howes has certainly worked hard in the last three years as a member of the BOS. We hope his new-gained experience will spur him on to new understandings about his proper role as a Selectman, and to far more open-mindedly inhabit a leadership position as a public servant in our democracy.
(Link to the Howes campaign website; link to election results)
