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Eye-Opening

The Feb. 27 meeting about the APT Foundation’s planned clinic was eye-opening, to say the least. It demonstrated a contrast in styles that was apparent to everyone. On one hand, Dr. Lynn Madden, CEO of APT Foundation, conducted herself in a calm, confident manner. Although presented with questions from concerned and sometimes emotional residents, she provided helpful information concerning the operation of the proposed clinic. If nothing else, she probably convinced many of the need for this type of facility in our society. She was not as convincing with her claims of little or no negative impact upon the chosen location. However, she came across as a credible professional attempting to further her organization’s mission.

On the other hand, this was not our first selectman’s most shining moment. According to the town website, the meeting was to be an informational forum by APT followed by a Q&A session. From the start, First Selectman Matt Hoey seemed to have a defensive posture and aggressively projected that to the first poor individuals who dared to ask him questions on the very topic the meeting was about. He then elected to read a prepared statement proclaiming that he and the town committees were in complete compliance with the town charter. This is probably true, but in my opinion, Mr. Hoey’s failure was not an act of commission but rather one of omission. Where was his empathy for the residents’ concerns? Look, our first selectman is a reasonably smart man. So why didn’t he anticipate the understandable pushback by the community? A skillful politician would have been more transparent early on and could have gotten on the right side of this. And yes, maybe we’d have ended up in the same spot, but think of all the bad vibes that could have been avoided.

Michael Mennone

Guilford