> Callan sez:
>> Ouch!  That hurts Bruce!  Do you have no sympathy for the poor
>> preservation bureaucrat who's very livelyhood depends on putting down
>> independent thoughts about what and how to preserve the people's
>> history?  Why Maine must be full of people who have no appreciation for
>> their heritage!

Bruce replies:
>Actually I have a good deal of sympathy for the poor preservation
>bureaucrat. The problem, it appears from my outsider's vantage point, is
>that the occupation seems to exist in a near vacuum. It was created as a
>response to public pressure against the wholesale slaughter of our material
>heritage over the last few decades, but lately the politicians and the
>developers seem to have conspired to make the effort to preserve as low
>profile and minimal as possible. The regs. have been written. The
>bureaucracy is in place. The need has been met. Business as usual.
>
>I know I'm an idealist (for Christ sake, I'm still a Socialist), but if the
>PB doesn't see his/her role as a rabble-rouser and propagandist, rather
>than as just an arbiter and keeper of the flame, then the public is
>comforted and cozened and the game is lost.

Rabble-rouser and propagandist is the role of the public individual and the
non-profit preservation organization.  The bureaucrat cannot undertake this
role without seriously endangering her position.  If you wish that the
community preserve its resources, then you must make it happen.  The civil
servant is there to serve, not to create his own agenda.  Create one's own
agenda, and you end up in a real painful mess...when there is a firestorm
over an issue, you can't produce a constituency that justifies your actions
taken in the public interest.  That means you are out there all alone.
It's real easy for politicians in that circumstance to resolve the
controversy.  Fire the bureaucrat.

>> It seemed to me that there was no shortage of buearocrats...its just
>> that they were camoflaged as leading citizens and the socially
>> advantaged.
>
>Unfortunately, missing any concerted effort to educate the masses as to the
>what and why of preservationism, and given the apparent government
>capitulation to development at almost every turn, it is only the "elite"
>who seem to be able to mobilize themselves to fight the good fight. Around
>here, at least.

It is not the role of the bureaucrat to set the agenda as to what a
community values.  That is someone else's role (he said, pounding his point
home ever more redundantly).

>Wiscasset, a nearby town, has a fairly typical demographic cross-section
>for coastal Maine, which means, among other things, that valuing secondary
>education and some of the sensitivities that seem to accompany it (didn't
>actually finish at any of the many colleges I attended myself) is not high
>on  many people's list of priorities.
>
>A few years ago the only remaining working farm in the town went on the
>block when its owner died and his relatives decided that they didn't have
>brains enough themselves to become developers of a sub-division. The High
>Street set sensibly recognized what the lose of this farm would mean to the
>community and set about raising a god-awful amount of money to purchase it,
>establish it as an educational center, and keep it as a working farm.
>
>So, what we have is a town full of people dissing the "element" for running
>roughshod over the community, reducing the taxbase, and generally doing the
>things that High Street people do that we can't abide, while our children
>and grandchildren make regular school visits to the only working farm they
>are ever likely to see in rural Maine.
>
>Personally, I hang with the slobs, and only join up with the High Street
>crowd when their agenda coincides with mine (like stopping superhighways
>from changing the neighborhood forever). But... I sure as hell appreciate
>what they did with their burst of energy and funds.

Many preserved places that we enjoy today were saved for us by those that
came before us; those that had the vision of what it could become.  Every
preservation battle is for something that is not presently valued.  You
have to go back to the time when that place was preserved.  Transport
yourself.  See how out of fashion it is?  Why, I grew up in a place just
like that...it's not historic, it's just old.  Look how run down it is.
It's dangerous.  Tear it down, we have a wonderful new project that will
put it to good productive use; while we're getting all the details together
for our new project, we'll turn it into a "temporary" parking lot.  You get
the picture.  Today, the preserved place is a wonderful neighborhood, or a
fabulous house museum that is a heritage tourism magnet, and so forth.  But
it was saved for us by visionaries.

So when you are up against attitudes in your current preservation battle,
transport yourself.  To the future.  Try to take your "opponents" with you.
They're really not opponents.  They're trying to do what they think is best
for the community too.  You just have to take them with you, try to inspire
them with your vision of the future.


________________________________________________
Dan Becker,  Executive Director              "What's this? Fan mail
Raleigh Historic                                       from some flounder?"
Districts Commission                               - Bullwinkle J. Moose

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