FROM THE EDITOR: Civility, Service Must Be Yoked Together
Local government boards are reorganizing. They do so against a backdrop of scandal and embarrassing behavior in 2024. Yet, those same bad acts are leading some would-be leaders to be better.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
This week brings a series of reorganization meetings to our local government boards.
In Spotsylvania, both the Board of Supervisors and the School Board will elect new chairs and vice chairs. They’ll also make committee assignments. The same will happen in Stafford at the School Board meeting. And in Fredericksburg, the next steps in replacing former Ward 3 Councilor Tim Duffy will be undertaken.
The Stafford Board of Supervisors held their organizational meeting last week. And as we reported, it didn’t take long for tensions to rear their heads.
Don’t be surprised if we see a dust-up at the Spotsylvania County School Board organizational meeting as well, as there appears to be no clear candidate to replace Lorita Daniels as chair.
While the Spotsylvania School Board and Stafford Board of Supervisors got a lot of attention last year, they were far from the only boards in our region with public image issues. Fredericksburg City Council and the King George Board of Supervisors also had their moments that left citizens feeling unheard and, at times, outright ignored.
Frequently, these bad actions result in people bemoaning the loss of “civility.” Count the Advance as one news organization that has weighed in on civility’s decline.
However, civility, when its definition is limited to public behavior, doesn’t get to the core of the problems we are currently seeing from the dais. Nor does talk of civility bring about change.
For any discussion of civility to be effective, it must be yoked to its counterbalance — service.
When Public Service Wanes
Discussing civility in terms of public behavior is not unwarranted. Indeed, there are times when that is all that is required.
The severing of shame from public service has dire consequences, because it’s not just the ideals of governance that suffer; it is the lives of citizens themselves.
When public officials are capable of feeling shame, and consequently adjusting their behavior, then pointing out uncivil performative behavior can remind government leaders that their role is to serve.
But shame is not a trait that a number of our local board members appear to feel at an appropriately deep level. And when shame disappears — whether because the individual is incapable of feeling it, or because they hide their shame behind legal counsel or loopholes in the Freedom of Information Act — then the idea that elected leaders are public servants begins to die.
The severing of shame from public service has dire consequences, because it’s not just the ideals of governance that suffer; it is the lives of citizens themselves.
Too often, the damage is hidden from the public behind nondisclosure agreements and denied Freedom of Information Act requests.
This is what makes the recent events in Stafford County so extraordinary.
Mary Becelia and her family fought back against the silence. And they are reminding citizens and government leaders in Stafford alike that civility powered by public service is still enough to speak truth to power.
Equally important, she and her family are now speaking out about what it means to be on the receiving end of one’s own local government turning on you.
In the first episode of the New Dominion Podcast’s third season, Becelia, her husband, and her son joined us to talk about public service, and what it is to live through the experience that the Board put her and her family through.
Becelia reached for words like “surreal” and “gob-smacked” to explain the early days of her struggles.
As time has moved forward, however, another phrase she only recently learned just seemed to capture her and her family’s experience best of all.
“NPC,” or a non-player character.
Used in video gaming, an NPC is a character that is not controlled by a human player. It’s just there to be manipulated.
“They may see me as an NPC,” Becelia said, “… a background thing that can be deleted or shoved to the side. But that is not what I am, and that is not what any citizen of this county is.”
Relegating citizens to NPC status is what Boards are effectively doing when they misuse the power at their disposal. And they reach the point of being able to do this when they have lost sight of the concept of service.
Then it becomes possible to see citizens as NPCs; just strings of code to be moved and sacrificed to meet their own political desires.
Beyond Pessimism
This story, as it has unfolded, has angered many. Rightly so.
But it would be a mistake to allow that anger to overtake our faith in self-government. For when we hue to the idea that all government leaders are corrupt, and that the system is fundamentally rigged against the electorate, then we pave the way for the corrupt to lead without restraint.
Becelia and her husband Clayton have shown that when citizens stand for what is right, then good results can come from it. Not all is right, of course. Becelia wants the Board to take actions that would ensure no private citizen is so treated again. As of now, that has not happened.
More important, their standing up has set a model for what self-government looks like that their son, Robert, is now embracing.
when we hue to the idea that all government leaders are corrupt, and that the system is fundamentally rigged against the electorate, then we pave the way for the corrupt to lead without restraint.
Watching his parents fight for what’s right, he said on the podcast, “motivated me” to be “part of the generation that maybe is a bit more honest and a bit more straight-forward with its constituents.”
Even having experienced what he has with his family, Robert said he still sees good in all levels of government, and that “it’s good to see there’s hope in every generation.”
It’s also good, he said, to know that there will always be people like his parents to fight back when government oversteps its bounds.
Civility. Service. These are the core of good governance. And they place a burden on each of us.
The Boards in our region have plenty of material from the past year to learn from.
Now, go and be better.
Listen to Mary Becelia and Family on NDP
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Amen. One can hope for the re-emergence of civic (and moral) virtue, with respect to which shame properly attaches to error, and styling in such error, as we've seen in countless videos of meetings, will become horrifying -- as it should be.