Selectmen name is one steady habit overdue for reboot
I imagine the formation of the first Board of Selectmen in New England went something like this:
“We are in charge now. What shalt we deem ourselves?”
“Well, we have been selected from among the finest of our townsfolk. And we are men. How about ‘the Board of Selected Men?’ ” ‘selectpeople’?”
“Bwah, hah, hah! Ye is funny! ... Oh, ye is serious. Alas, tis also an abundance of digits. Methinks we are done here. Thou shalt forget about such trifles after quaffing a few more ales.”
Thus, a “tradition,” was born, and the matter of municipal inclusion forgotten.
It surfaced a few more times over ensuing centuries.
In 1938, some Stamford students were granted honorary city titles for the day. Bessie Cantarano, 14, declared herself “first selectwoman.” There were no documented protests in the Stamford Advocate.
After Greenwich elected Mrs. Agnes Morley to its board in 1965, Advocate reporter Steve Lesnik took a wry approach to recording history.
“Greenwich, notoriously fond of problem-solvingby-committee, was faced with one of its most baffling perplexities ever: ... What do you call the new woman selectman?”
Town counsel responded with “that’s your problem. There’s no provision for it in the General Statutes.”
Alternative titles are pondered in the article: selectmaness, selectlady, selectmanette.
“Selectwoman is such a tongue-twister. No one would dare try it in public.”
Who better to settle the matter than the first selectman? This was a man who, after all, was later a U.S. senator, investigated President Richard M. Nixon as a member of the Watergate Committee and concluded his political career as governor of Connecticut.
Lowell Weicker opted for “madame selectman.” Remember, Weicker is also the reason we now pay state income taxes.
Another decade passed and the incorporated city of Winstead, with fewer than 8,000 residents, took the bold step in 1977 of becoming the first community in Connecticut to adopt the neutral title of “Board of Selectpersons.”
Ruth Church, chairman (yes, “man”) of Winstead’s charter revision committee, said at the time that the progressive name change was suggested “kind of facetiously” before being taken more seriously. You may have caught on that it didn’t catch on. After three years as the only burg with the handle, Mayor P. Francis Hicks encouraged a reversal, opining that it “kind of makes us look ridiculous.” Today, they are selectmen again.
The battle waged through the decades. Diane Farrell was elected in 1997 as Westport’s first selectman, but had that formally changed to first selectwoman.
After taking over as chairman of Greenwich’s Board of Estimate and Taxation in 2018, Jill Oberlander succeeded in editing the language in policy guidelines to the neutral title of “chair.”
A year later, Oberlander entered the race as a candidate
for “first selectman.” She lost to Fred Camillo, but secured a seat on the three-member board. In the meantime, we published a deft op-ed from Cos Cob resident Allison Hope Kahn stating what should have been obvious: “our nomenclature needs updating.”
“It is denigrating to the accomplished women who have or will in the future seek to fill this seat, and indeed the full Board of Selectman, when we use exclusionary terms that are specific to men. It would be like going to get food for your pet cat at a store named ‘Dog supplies,’ ” she wrote.
Kahn reached out to Camillo, who invited discussion on the matter during his first meeting at the helm. He seconded Westport’s method of personal choice. Lauren Rabin opted for selectwoman and Oberlander became the town’s original selectperson.
Renaming the board isn’t quite as easy. Southbury failed around that time to embrace “select board” through a ballot measure (of course, that sounds like a platter at Cheesecake Factory). And no one in Greenwich pretends the first selectman has the authority of a mayor, erasing that option.
Progress stalled again with COVID’s arrival. Oberlander added the pronouns “she, her, hers” to her signature on official missives and encouraged the town to adapt the practice. The suggestion was declined as unnecessary.
So, it’s no wonder that as we chat over the phone, she feels compelled to check if the latest online BET policy guidelines have since reverted to “chairman.” The good news is they haven’t. The bad news is she couldn’t trust they didn’t.
“It’s all about inclusion,” she says. “Making people feel included in the process.”
When we start our conversation, Oberlander asks me to resist including any snarky asides she may make about the issue. I’m disappointed when she doesn’t. She flags me at one point (“so this is my snarky comment”) before explaining that she waits until the second time someone refers to her by a different title before making a correction (we clearly have different definitions of “snarky”).
Then she asks the question before I can: “So why do I do it?”
She credits her two teen daughters will helping her contextualize equity, inclusion and “the recognition of privilege.”
“If it frees people, if it lets people see they have opportunity, if we can take away one hurdle, then I think there are only positive benefits,” she explains.
When it comes to this quaint New England tradition, there’s also the matter that most people no longer know what a selectman, selectwoman or selectperson is.
“Selectman” is the antique normal. At that first meeting, Camillo said “I’m OK with the Board of Selectmen, but if there’s a better name out there, I’m all ears. It’s not something we have to decide today.”
A lot of days have passed ... again. Camillo has done some admirable work navigating his town through the pandemic. Maybe he can also find an exit from generations of steady habits that remain exclusive.