Editorial

Good job
Social capital in our communities is on the rise

It hasn't been easy and it hasn't always been pleasant, but the Gray Town Council and citizens who participate in their government's doings are coming together in a way that would make author Robert Putnam of "Bowling Alone" proud. Together, the Council and its citizenry are forging civic connections that ultimately will make us healthy, wealthy and wise.

Putnam, in his seminal book "Bowling Alone," examined the need for and the decline of what he termed 'social capital.' Social bonds and civic engagement had eroded steadily over the later half of the last century, Putnam posited, and without those bonds, the collective nation was at risk of spinning into subjective individuality. Social capital works its magic with high levels of trust and citizen participation to produce socially desirable outcomes.

There are many types of social capital, including civic, religious, formal and informal associations like Grange membership and Little League organizations. There is also governmental social capital, the kind that allows citizens to resolve collective problems more easily, the kind that greases the wheels that allow communities to advance smoothly and by widening our awareness to how our fates are linked, as he wrote in his book.

Over the last five years, there has been a sea change in Gray from closed and untrustworthy municipal efforts to ones that slowly but surely have opened the door to citizen involvement, discussion, and ideas.

The recent wrapping up of the town-wide zoning review is a prime example. By no stretch should anyone say that that process has been easy. But one by one and then in groups of two and three, and recently in groups of ten and twenty, citizens came to the meetings and spoke. They talked and they contributed and they offered their ideas to the Council in hopes that they would be heard. And, finally, they were.

They came to the Council Workshops on zoning and they spoke and they were heard. They came to the Planning Board and they spoke and they were heard. They wrote letters and they e-mailed and they called their elected representatives on the Council and they were heard. The citizens made a difference in the zone change process and the Council is beginning to recognize that that difference is better than the one they had intended to make themselves, because it was collective.

The Council was, in the end, judicious in its application of the balance between what they believed to be the best course and what they heard from citizens as the best course, something that citizen Don Hutchings spoke about at Monday's workshop. The Council balanced the needs of the many against the needs of the few, absorbing citizen comment into their work flow to produce something that is valued by all, because it was collective.

Good job, everyone. Citizens, your contributions do matter, whether they be spoken in public, offered as a silent presence at meetings, or as behind the scenes comments to individual Councilors. You, and the Council are increasing this community's social capital every time you leave your home to offer your ideas to a collective endeavor, and with even more participation, think of the heights this community can reach.

As Putnam said, there is "evidence that social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy." So, let's go for it!