You Too Will Be Impacted

To the Editor:

Although a member of the Groton Town Meeting Review Study Committee, I'm drafting this letter as a private citizen.

The Groton Town Meeting Survey, sent out with Groton Electric Light Department's most recent billing, represents a singular opportunity to endorse (and/or suggest) improvements to the core of Groton's governmental decision-making processes - our Town Meeting.

Theodore Roosevelt said it best: "It's not the critic that counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena."

Groton's registered voters have been provided a mechanism, only very rarely ever offered, that permits them to step into that aforementioned arena, and take credit for affecting, long grumbled about, improvements to our Town Meeting. Since Town Meeting's processes may well be impacted in no small part by the results of this Survey, whatever they may be, indifference is futile. You, too, WILL be impacted.

The question to pose to yourself is simple: Do you just want to be a spectator to history, or an active participant in making it happen? This is your chance to join with others who care, and take credit for supporting reasoned, thoughtful change.

Additional copies of the survey are available from Town Clerk's Office in Town Hall. If you have access to the Internet, you'll find directions on the different ways to respond, and how and where to return your survey, on the "Home" page of the town of Groton website (http://townofgroton.org/Home.aspx).

But, time is running out. You have only until midnight, this coming Monday, June 24 to make up your mind and act.

So, will you be a spectator, or a participant?

Sincerely,

Scott Evans Harker

Martins Pond Road