Transcription
A second look at the Dumfries scandal
When I was a kid, I used to get picked on
some, and I suppose a lot of it was
deserved. Looking back, I can see that I was
an unlovely, smart-aleck kid with acne, a
cowlick and a nervous giggle, a classic
nerd, wide open for
anybody to come by and
hassle. With the hindsight
of age, I can understand
this condition, but it does
not yet endear me to the
people who did the picking.
I feel similarly about all the
solid residents who are
lining up to throw rocks at
Dumfries.
Unquestionably, it is
unfortunate that arrest
records were misplaced in
Dumfries. Anything that endangers the
right of a fair trial or a proper conviction is a
bad thing, ranging all the way down to a
tragedy. But we've had tragedies in other
towns, and where we can judge a town by
what it does in dire straits, we should also
be able to judge the onlookers by whether
they pitch in to help, or just stand back and
pontificate.
I went to a Dumfries Town Council
meeting, not because I had business there
- my tie with Dumfries is a post office box
- but so I could hear what all the fuss was
about. I got there early, and watched an
earlier meeting, where a lot of working folk
were assured by Mayor Bauckman that he
and others had worked out a deal with
some Dumfries trailer-park owners not to
have people tossed out in the cold. It may
have been a con, but the people seemed
happy about it.
I stayed for the council meeting and
heard a good man spend some bad time
fessing up to the mess the records were in.
Police Chief LaBossiere outlined the
problem and the steps he was taking to go
about recovering as many of the missing
records as he could. I did not get the feeling
anybody was evading or hiding anything.
There is a stain on the town government,
and what are we going to do about it? That
seems like the kind of attitude with which
people can work to rebuild the confidence
the town has enjoyed for more than 200
years. Chastising may be useful when
people won't admit their errors. When they
do, and while they try to set things right, it
is self-serving and shoddy citizenship to
hound them and howl at them about how
bad the error was.
If the solid residents really want to
correct this problem, and not just use it as
the first day of finger-pointing season, they
should do what good neighbors have done
for most of Dumfries' long history, lend a
hand in adversity, lend their expertise in
legal matters to help Dumfries come up
with some sort of solution to the problem
that besets it. The county government, the
news media, the business leaders, probably
all have something to contribute to a proud
town with troubles. There may well be
reasons why it happened, reasons we can
keep from happening again. But even
assuming the whole fault is streaming and
stinking at Dumfries' door, neighbors have
stumbled before, of their own doing. Do we
laugh, shame them or help them up?
Which is the honorable course?
Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebert is an
honorable man. They are all honorable
people. And I am not uncommonly
charitable toward bureaucratic
misfeasance. The people spending our
taxes have a responsibility to spend them
wisely and get into some other line of work.
But we have some responsibilities too, and
just because it is not our turn in the barrel,
this time, is not a very praiseworthy
discharge of them.
Historic Dumfries Inc. is still writing the
history of Dumfries, and it's a long one,
with heroes and villains both. When this
chapter is written, where will all the
finger-pointers fit? In a story about people
lending a hand to a neighbor in trouble, or
like the hecklers of my youth, in a memory
of people who weren't very endearing, or
useful, no matter how right they were?
Mr. Tennant lives in Dumfries.Transcriber
Adam KitchenLanguage
English