Leaders pen letter calling for ‘civility’ in meetings
CHELMSFORD» After Chelmsford Select Board member Emily Antul resigned on Jan. 11 following her use of a gendered slur against a Finance Committee member in a meeting, three town board chairs penned a letter urging civility in meetings.
Ken Lefebvre, chair of the Select Board, Jim Clancy, chair of the Finance Committee, and Dennis King, chair of the School Committee, each wrote and signed the letter to represent the three committees present at last Monday’s tri-board meeting.
The letter, dated Wednesday and posted on the town website, opens by reminding Chelmsford citizens that the town “prides itself on being an open, caring, and respectful community that encourages its residents to make their voices heard in the administration of our town and its government. The volunteers that step forward to serve on our boards and committees, donating countless hours of their time and their talents, do so not for personal gain, but rooted in an overwhelming desire to make Chelmsford a great place to work and an even better place to call home. The ways in which we accomplish this collective goal may look different to each of us, and those differences are debated, sometimes fervently, in a public forum through thorough examination of the information available to us and review of all options put forward.”
Next, the letter acknowledges the stress the pandemic has placed on Chelmsford residents, a point Antul referenced in her resignation letter, but says that these stressors must not impede respectful discourse in public forums.
The letter also references a mantra prevalent in the Chelmsford school district, P.R.I.D.E. (Perseverance, Respect, Integrity, Dedication, Empathy), and urged the town’s board and committee members to “review these ideals and to ensure that we are conducting ourselves as examples of P.R.I.D.E. in action so that
The letter concludes by affirming that the town’s board members don’t condone “vulgarity or bullying” and will not tolerate it in a public forum, referencing last Monday’s ‘unfortunate’ event.
future generations of public servants are inspired to continue and improve upon the work we strive to accomplish for our community.”
The letter concludes by affirming that the town’s board members don’t condone “vulgarity or bullying” and will not tolerate it in a public forum, referencing last Monday’s “unfortunate” event.
Lefebvre, the Select Board Chair, made clear that the letter was written not just in response to the Antul incident, but also at least one other incident where “people spoke to someone in a degrading or disrespectful manner,” he said. “It’s just not needed. And, you know, especially with everything else going on in the nation right now, it’s just not the time or place in a public forum to speak that way.”
Lefebvre also referenced the incident in November when a member of the Diversity, Racial Equity, and Inclusion Committee used a derogatory phrase involving police, which also includes an expletive, during a meeting.
“I just thought it was time to make a statement, I didn’t want to wait for the next meeting,” Lefebvre said. “I brought it up to the other two chairs, and they thought it was a good idea.”
Lefebvre said that, in his tenure as Select Board chair, he has never received so many calls about one issue. He estimates he received “over 100 phone calls between Tuesday and Wednesday, probably at least 20 emails and probably another 50 to 100 texts.”
Clancy said the goal of the letter was to “ensure that we’re instilling the ideals of civility in our discussions on these boards, because at the end of the day, we all need to work together in order to make sure that we’re properly both representing the town but also our own ideologies.” He added that the committee members’ discourse must “(stay) in a place where we’re able to have disagreements that are not disagreeable.”
Although Clancy said the letter was a joint effort, the letter writers all credited Clancy with initially adding the section about P.R.I.D.E. He said he added it because the acronym is so prominently displayed across school buildings and websites.
“I think we’d all do well to embody that in our own positions so that we’re setting the example,” he said.
King said he hopes the letter will send a message to the community that the boards “didn’t condone that type of behavior in any of our meetings, and that we would hold ourselves to a higher standard as being members of the board,” he said. “We hope that we can move on from here. I think we generally … work well together. So we want to keep that going.”