To the Editor:

Years ago, as a teacher at Newtown High School, I helped establish an exchange program between Newtown and Bassick High School in Bridgeport. My Bassick colleagues and I used a simulation.  We put students in multi-racial groups and asked each team to compete against the others.  The winning team made the rules for the following rounds. Every winning team made rules that ensured it won in succeeding rounds. Always. No exceptions. “Losers” were angry and complained that the system wasn’t fair. “Winners” were genuinely surprised.  The way they saw it the rules were fine. Anyone could win the game.

I am reminded of that simulation as I read recent Bee Hive letters about a proposed change to Newtown’s Charter, the rules by which government officials must abide.  The Charter Revision Commission (CRC) is recommending a change to the make-up of the Board of Education from a bare majority (four of seven members) to a majority of five. Members of the Democratic Town Committee are strongly opposed.  A Bee Ink Drops editorial (April 30, 2015) cautioned that ”without a compelling reason to scrap the ‘bare majority’ language for school board membership, the Charter Revision Commission should keep the requirement in place…”   In a letter to The Bee (May 14, 2015) three Republican members of the CRC, Jeff Capesi, Tom Long, and Dan Wiedemann, argued “our goal in making this clarification to the charter is not to make the Board of Education more political, but to keep it apolitical.  To allow you, the electorate, the opportunity to seat those Newtowners you believe will give our children the education you believe is best.”

Sounds good. Should work. The problem is what happens when minority perspectives aren’t allowed an adequate representation at the most important table in local government: the results are anger, dissention, and mistakes that might have been avoided. Al Cramer, the first CRC chairman, spoke to this point during the first meeting of the present CRC.

From the perspective a lifelong Democrat, during the last six years Newtown government has worked well under Republican leadership –until now.  However, when the Legislative Council, dominated by Republicans eight to four, appointed five Republicans to the CRC out of nine commissioners, Republicans crossed the line into over-reach.  They insured from the start that whatever Republicans decided would happen.

If the CRC adopts this change as I expect, and the Legislative Council approves it as I anticipate that it will, Newtown will lose something critical to a truly democratic society – a genuine respect for minority voices.  Sure people can vote.  However, as my students learned long ago, once in power, dominant groups change the rules of the game to insure their continued dominance.

Sincerely,

Jan Lee Brookes

38 Hundred Acres Road, Newtown        May 27, 2015