Techniques of environmental political action in small towns
For many years, I’ve been occasionally involved in local political action to maintain and extend open space land in Connecticut. Here are a few things I’ve learned.
1. In land development, money doesn’t talk, it screams. There is enormous money to be made in building and land development; developers are focused, persistent, experienced, and well-financed. In the long run, the best way to save open space is to buy the land and turn it over to the Town or perhaps a land trust (with extremely detailed and thorough legal restrictions on permitted activities). It is possible to tie projects up with legalities, hearings, and politics–but even if you win one year, there might well be some other developer with a bright idea for the land next year. Thus try to start an open-space acquisition program by the town; in my experience, voters tend to favor funding for open-space acquisition (often exceeding approval rates for school budgets, roads, sewers, and narrow interest-group proposals such as skateparks, tax benefits for malls and sports teams, etc.).
2. Many towns (that is, their taxpayers) provide substantial subsidies, direct and indirect, for land development by funding the necessary infrastructure (water, roads, sewers, loans, tax subsidies). Pro-development politicians can it “investment;” others might call it “welfare socialism for rich developers.” At any rate, it is funded by taxpayers. Priorities can be challenged, and development subsidies can be diverted to open space acquisition. It may well be that the local politicians are pro-development but often the voters are less so; thus try to move decisions about priorities to the electorate (and the taxpayers). In general, the broader the decision-making arena, the more likely pro-environmental campaigns will succeed. A slogan for open-space acquisition might be “They’re not making any more land; let’s save it now.” Why not use tax dollars for open space rather than taxpayer-subsidized real estate development? Should all those tax dollars help out needy developers?
3. Local political systems can sometimes be quite porous and responsive to effective political action. “They” don’t necessarily run everything everywhere. There are many avenues of influence to use in a multi-prong strategy: talking to local politicians, making campaign contributions, speaking out at public hearings, starting petitions, writing letters to newspapers, working with journalists, hiring a lawyer and a land-use consultant. In many land-use issues, the most important players are the town civil servants; get to know them, learn about their work, get documents from them, drop by and talk to them, watch them at meetings, and don’t denounce them publicly (or privately). Small-town newspapers are sometimes desperate for sensible letters (just look at what they publish now). Start a letter-writing campaign: one letter to the editor may appear to be crank mail, two letters a concern, three letters a mass movement. Get to know the local newpaper reporters; gossip with them. Get names, phones, fax, email addresses of all relevant news reporters to distribute your speeches and documents. In political campaigns, try to vote the pro-development officials out of office. It might be particularly effective to construct an environmental scorecard that ranks elected officials by their votes on key environmental issues; then publish the scorecard two or three weeks before the election in newspapers and letters to the editor. Generally, the more that environmental issues can be surfaced publicly, the more the conservationists win. Land-use commissions sometimes prefer to work privately, in ill-attended meetings; even a few people showing up at meetings will get the attention of decision-makers; a lot of people will profoundly focus their minds. The public focus will also provide decision-makers with a excuse to their developer friends about why they couldn’t deliver the votes on a particular project.
4. When you give a speech at a hearing, provide the written text to the town officials and reporters at the hearing (sometimes as a formal submission to the hearing board). Then just read/talk through your written text in the speech. Keep the speech short but with several key items, and on point. Try to have some vivid specifics (enumerate the trees to be cut down, the opportunities lost, the particular thoughtlessness of the development plan) along with more analytical arguments. Try to make it clear why a general opposing principle (for example, “A man should be able to do what he wants with his land”) is not relevant in this case. Address the decision-makers, not your allies or opponents in the audience. If interrupted by opponents in the audience, have a prepared response–perhaps “you had your turn to talk, may I now please address the land-use commissioners?” Also give your handout to reporters before the meeting, along with your name, the name of your organization (“Friends of the Park,” or whatever), and phone number. Try to be the first speaker when your issue finally comes up at a meeting. Show up early, get on the agenda. Introduce yourself to the officials, staff, and journalists. Prepare responses in advance to questions that might be asked; rehearse in advance being questioned or replied to by members of hearing board (those folks sitting up on high chairs behind the grand table at the front of the room). If in doubt, simply repeat the key sentences of your speech. Avoid personal attacks on decision-makers on land-use commissions; such attacks can be counter-productive and cause the members of the commission to circle the wagons and defend their colleagues against such attacks.
5. In local politics, what goes round comes round. The resolution of land-use problems involves mutual agreement among the town, developers, land-use commissions, and conservationists. Don’t prematurely denounce and alienate other participants in this process, since they may well be part of the solution later on. Avoid personalizing the conflict. The point of the political process is to solve problems.
6. And the point of politics is to win; you are going to have to persuade people. Keep your eye on the target–which is winning, not denouncing, not claiming credit, not saving face. Some citizens view the political process as an opportunity to vent, to rant, to engage in personal attacks. How about winning instead? Anger needs to be translated into effective political action, into the hard work of political organizing, political thinking, and persuasion. (And anyway, you will probably have all too many allies who would rather vent now than win later. So you try to provide something else.)
7. A good lawyer, with values close to yours, can be an enormous help. Usually this means finding an out-of-town environmental lawyer who has been through it all before. Most local lawyers will be tied into the real-estate behemoth (that’s where the money is) and won’t even take local land-use cases for the environmental side. Also your good environmental lawyer, a specialist, will know a lot more about environmental law and land-use procedures than the local town counsel or the local lawyers for developers. A good lawyer really gets the attention of decision-makers.
8. Land-use consultants (wetland specialists, soils scientists), again probably from out-of-town, can provide helpful evidence. They can combine a bit of science with detailed and heart-rending descriptions of nature destroyed, along with broad advice about land-use policies and practices in other nearby towns. Such consultants make most of their money by helping developers; find someone who has at least worked for both sides. Land-use evidence is not entirely scientific and objective; consultants can sometimes cherry-pick data and find useful material for either side, particularly the side that’s paying the bills.
9. Political corruption usually occurs where the big money is (public works projects, construction projects, arcane zoning law changes permitting lucrative use of a once-protected site, development subsidies); maybe you can turn something up and help a newspaper (or prosecutor) expose corrupt officials and developers and send them to jail, or at least make them behave better. We’ve had a lot of political-economic corruption in Connecticut in recent years. This strategy burns bridges and you had better be right and careful. And if not corruption, conflicts of interest. There is real leverage here. Check out sources of campaign contributions; revolving-door members of land-use commissions (lawyers who serve on the commission, leave, and then appear as advocates before the commission); personal and economic connections to the real-estate industry of those who serve on land-use commissions. You may be able to disable unfriendly decision-makers with conflict-of-interest charges, a bruising but devastating strategy.
10. Don’t be misled by a short-term win or a loss; things may well go on and on. There are many attack points, endless hearings, many commissions–for both sides. Keep at it.
11. A relatively small amount of money can have a lot of leverage in small-town politics. I’ve been repeatedly surprised at the modest finances of small-town political parties and political campaigns–a few hundred dollars here and there can make a difference. This is a small amount compared to what a good lawyer will cost you. Be sure to follow precisely the laws concerning political contributions.
12. Start an organization (it need only have a few people). Give it a good, evocative name: “Friends of Memorial Park,” or “(name of town) Neighborhood Association.” Design a letterhead, get a mailing address, put your organization’s name on all your communications. Building a large organization is a good way to waste a lot of time and resources; many things can be done by a few people and a bit of money. If you start to build an organization, assume that some of your members will be reporting back to your opponents and that everything is public.
13. Those who put themselves out in public will sometimes attract attention, criticism, personal attack, crank calls, hate mail, nut cases. You are already a success! Efforts at intimidation are not uncommon (by hearing board members and politicians, town lawyers, opposing lawyers, writers of letters to the editor, and, of course, developers). This comes with the package. The forces of evil are trying to shut you up by intimidation. Greet such attacks with an earnest persistence and new dedication to conserving some land.
