Just Thinkin' ...on Potties

by Lisa Dingle

As I write this column, the sun is shining on the beautiful Main Street in Concord. I'm at Helen's - my favorite breakfast spot (great toast!) and a man is sitting at the counter talking to Sandy, my favorite waitress here. The man is wearing a faded orange t-shirt with even more faded grey letters that spell out "Save Wa l n W ods". I have just guessed at the missing letters. My guess is that the balding man with the ponytail and the faded orange shirt wants to save Walden Woods. Or maybe he already saved it. The shirt looks pretty old and I drove past the woods earlier. They're still there.

I am thinking that maybe I should get up and talk to the man. Maybe ask him about how he saved the woods with his t-shirt. Did he have a folk star come sing and raise money and make lawn signs and mail information to all of Concord? Did he march in the center of Concord with his "Save Walden Woods" posse and carry big signs or wear all black (to indicate the severe consequences if Walden Woods became a big giant soccer field)? How did he come to believe Walden Woods should be saved? Was Thoreau's cabin site threatened? I thought Walden Pond was a national conservation monument thing. Why did he have to save it if it was already saved once? I have so many questions.

Because I am about to embark on my own campaign and I need to think it through.

How to get people involved?

How to communicate my message?

How to get people to the polls to vote for my cause?

Whether or not we need t-shirts?

I've only just become aware of the issue, and it is indeed an issue for us all. Big, small, young, old, townie or blow-in. There are subcategories of interested parties as well: coffee drinkers, tea drinkers, water drinkers, gin and tonic drinkers (basically anyone involved in liquid consumption); pregnant women, very young children - say from 2 - 4 - who yearn to ditch the diaper and wear big boy or big girl underwear. Oh ya. I have to appeal to them all (even the diaper bunch, because they are huge market influencers on their parents), and I think I've nailed the slogan. As a reader of the wildly popular Dunstable Commons newspaper, you are now the first to see my slogan in print. By all means, please feel free to share your opinion relative to its impact on you. Sit down. Take a deep breath. Here it is.

People for the Potties

Yeah, I thought of "Save the Potties", but it seemed so cliché.

So, why am I in such a tizzy? Why do I need to check the prices for t-shirts as soon as I get home (or closer to a working wireless network)? Because I attended the continuation of the Dunstable Annual Town Meeting this past Monday night, and at approximately 10:00, here is what was happening....

So, we're in the gym at the Swallow Union Elementary School and we get to line item 2,457,332.001 on the budget and it requires that the recreation department get up and read their budget requirement for the coming year. A very friendly looking gentleman gets up (it was late and my vision is getting worse with each day, so I can't be more specific than that) and he says something like, "Madam Moderator, the Recreation Department makes a motion for five hundred dollars."

Five hundred dollars? That sounded a little light. So, we all had the same question (okay, I'm exaggerating. Some of us were asleep by then, and others just groaning because we had worked very hard as a group to that point. You've probably been to Town Meeting. We all get very worked up, and some of us have to yell a lot and disagree a lot and throw out a lot of motions to adjourn right away for various reasons - only some of which I understand - and I don't even think we had gotten to the Transfer Station at that point (I think that was budget line item 2,689,354.002) so we even had to conserve our energy because the Transfer Station is one of the most controversial items every single year. It is all very exhausting.

Anyway, so our question (and I forget who got picked by Madam Moderator to actually ask it) was something like, "So, Mr. Recreation Department Man, it says here that you requested about five THOUSAND dollars and now you are asking for five HUNDRED dollars....what gives?" And Mr. Recreation Department Man says that he thinks he should explain, because he was asked to make some cuts, and even though he is very willing to live within the five hundred dollars he is now asking for (I am not sure if he was just being nice, or if Mr. Recreation Man is just a big giant brown noser, but he looked pretty genuine to me), we as an audience of voters should know that they cut....

The Porta-Potties.

Pandemonium ensued.

"The Porta-Potties?!"

Yes.

"We have Porta-Potties?!"

Yes.

"How many do we have?!"

Four.

"Where are they?!"

Two at Larter Field, One at Swallow Union, One at the Babe Ruth field (I was under the impression that this one was a "floater" - seriously).

A lot of discussion ensued and it wasn't clear what the mood of the floor was, but there was noisy debate. So, we asked how many potties were actually needed and the very nice man started punching numbers into a calculator (I am so impressed when department heads bring their own calculators to the town meeting so that they can double check the numbers presented and give us answers on the spot. That is very considerate in my opinion.) And he says that he thinks he can get by with three and that it really only means that he needs the original five hundred dollars plus another (something like) $1357.29, which is way under the original five thousand requested. So he is still being very sacrificial, along with everyone else. so that is good.

So Madam Moderator tells us that - if we want the potties - first we have to vote down the motion for the five hundred dollars, in order to make a new motion to vote for the $1857.29. This is part of the very complicated Town Meeting operational rules made up by a sadist called ‘Robert' a long time ago. "Bob" most likely had very few friends and I'll bet his dinner parties went on FOREVER with all the motioning and amended motioning and such.

So someone makes the motion (sigh) to vote on the original five hundred dollars and people are confused and some hands start to rise from people I KNOW want to keep the potties and I yell at them (don't want to mention any names but they've lived here a long time and their last name rhymes with "Nimpton") and they turn around and I say the cliché slogan, "Save the Potties!" (because I could not be creative and come up with anything else at the time), and they put their hands right down because they are nervous, mostly because I have a very serious look on my face, and the other reason is that no one has ever yelled "Save the Potties" on the floor of the official Dunstable Annual Town Meeting before.

So, in the end, the potties were saved by a margin of 9 votes.

Think I can rest easy?

No!

Nine votes are not enough. We need more!

We need a campaign.

Signs, informational packets, guerilla tactics (look for notices in the potties, people!) and .... Maybe even t-shirts!

I'm not sure when the vote will be - probably the end of July or the beginning of September - but be ready folks. Your town needs you.

People for the Potties!

Vote. Vote Yes. Vote Often (not really, Ms. Town Clerk - we would never do that.)

Thanks for readin'.

Lisa