Seeing Ourselves With New Eyes Going Into the Next 50 Years

The WRC is celebrating 50 years of working with the towns and citizens of the Windham Region this year.  As I hope you've noticed from the ongoing series of retrospective articles, much of the history of the WRC is the history of planning in Vermont!  I was asked to provide my perspective on the future of the WRC.  The future I envision in 2015 is considerably different than what I would have written in May, 2011.

Regional commissions were viewed as dispensable by some in positions of state leadership in pre-Irene 2010. The opposite is true in 2015.  Having demonstrated their capacity to serve as the essential link between state, local and federal government in the response to, and long-term recovery from, Tropical Storm Irene, state agencies also came to realize that it is at the regional level where most state programs come together.  It's at the regional level where programatic "stove pipes" - the natural tendency of programs to be isolated from another - can be broken down.  It's also where common municipal needs can be met.

In 2015 regional commissions - the omission of planning here is purposeful as we do much more than plan - are trying to strike the balance between being integral to the implementation of a wide array of state policies (especially land use, transportation, emergency, natural resource, energy, climate change and flood resilience, and most recently, water quality) and being relevant to our towns' specific and common needs.  The distance between the state's perceived needs and the town's perceived needs is often quite great.

We strive to make state and federal programs work for our towns.  A very practical reality is that we are reliant upon these programs to provide staff resources to provide a variety of services.  We also pursue specific grant opportunities that we feel will be of benefit to the communities we serve. What we would like to do is be more responsive to our towns' own perceived needs.  To that end, we have engaged in a discussion about shared municipal services with town officials.  The goal is to more fully pursue our stated mission of assisting towns with effective local government. 

We would like to work with our towns to have them identify among themselves services where they'd like to collaborate.  What type of services?  Anything from shared purchasing programs to animal control to zoning administration to road maintenance services.  In some cases towns might be able to enter into effective agreements with one another.  In other cases they might want the regional commission to organize and administer the service for them.  For now we are taking an organic approach - supporting the towns as they identify their priorities and then figuring out what implementation model makes the most sense.  In any case the towns by their own decision would provide full financial support of the effort, but this means they would have total control.  This may result in cost savings, but as importantly these arrangements should result in greater value for money spent with less administrative burden.  Another benefit could very well be the sustainability of Vermont's form of local governance. Shared services will allow towns to exert local control while sharing the burden of increasingly complex government administration.

We are also recognizing the value of looking beyond our region's boundaries to effect meaningful economic development that provides household income security.  The closure of Vermont Yankee has prompted us to look at our "commute to work" patterns in a new light.  Each day, the Windham Region exchanges workers with our neighboring regions in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.  To be sure, we will want to pursue economic development, job growth, and labor development in the Windham Region.  But if you look at where people work that live in our region, it becomes apparent that the Windham Region has a stake in the well being of the economies of Cheshire County, New Hampshire and Franklin County, Massachusetts.  To that end the WRC and Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation are working with counterparts in New Hampshire and Massachusetts to identify what our economic development strategies have in common, and what common workforce development opportunities we can pursue together. 

Looking into the future, the WRC will have a role in assisting state government in implementing - and shaping - statewide policy, and we will continue to seek federal resources in support of regional initiatives to benefit our towns.  We will also work to shape federal policy where we have a useful perspective to share.  These purposes hearken back to our founding.  We will also continue to assist towns with their planning and plan implementation needs.  This has been and will always be a core function. 

The two new challenges before us, organizing our towns to share administrative functions in a way that preserves our valued form of governance, and working with BDCC and our counterparts in adjoining states and regions to shape our economic future, reflect the need for the WRC take the initiative to shape a future that turns around demographic trends.  Our economy is stagnating, wages are declining, the working-age population is leaving, our population is getting older, and an extraordinary percentage of those who live here derive their income from someplace else and are thus somewhat disconnected from the local economy.  But we have so much to build upon.  For a rural area we have a remarkably diverse economy with no single dominant industry.  Our villages and downtowns are remarkably intact.  There remains an energy and enthusiasm about this beautiful place. We are blessed with a wealth of human and natural resources.  We are resilient.

The future of the region really is what we make it.  So the role of the WRC for the next 50 years is to do what we have done for the last 50 years - to empower self-determination through collaboration.  We should be outward-looking to learn from the experience of other people and places to expand our knowledge and understanding and fertilize our imaginations, but do so knowing that our future will be our own invention. There is no formula to follow.  We may need to work together differently, owning new realities that could give us reason to change the way we have been doing things for the last 5, 10, 20, 50 or 200 years.  Above all we have to recognize the amazing things about the people and places that comprise the Windham Region; things that time and familiarity may cause us to take for granted.  People invest of themselves in a place out of hope and affection.  We need to explore new ways to revisit the people and communities and places of this region to renew that affection, and to effectively see ourselves again with new eyes.  From that vantage point we'll have a better understanding of what is wanted and needed, what steps need to be taken to meet those wants and needs, and - if we do it right - the enthusiasm and commitment to take those steps.