Reader's Response: In LM free speech still comes at personal cost - Main Line Media News Page 1 of 2

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Reader's Response: In LM free speech still comes at

personal cost
Wednesday, January 27, 2010

By Carla Zambelli

On Jan. 20, 2010, I went to my first Lower Merion Township Board of Commissioners meeting in months. I have found it
increasingly difficult to attend those meetings and the sheer duration of the meetings ridiculous.

We are as residents lectured by these elected officials on decorum and are told only to speak for three minutes and to
not be repetitive, yet watching them makes you want to stand some of them in opposite corners like small children for
“time out” and get out the egg-timer if not a muzzle. “Do as I say, not as I do” gets to be hard to take from elected
officials after a while. But hey, it’s a new year, there is always hope, so I went to speak out on issues I found
troublesome and crucially important to the future of Lower Merion.

We are supposed to live in a democracy, even on a local level. But in Lower Merion the balance is evaporating and I am
deeply concerned with a political thug culture that is seeping into every nook and cranny of Lower Merion Township.

I am increasingly disturbed by the repetitive destructive patterns I see in Lower Merion, and that this has now extended
itself to advisory-board appointments. It seems to me that the very process by which this township operates is being
deliberately circumvented. This township could be in jeopardy of much future litigation if it is perceived that there are no
advisory boards that are capable of the truly independent thought as is proper in these instances.

What is the root of the desire to change how appointments are done? I believe it is all about personal agendas, and any
commissioner sitting on Lower Merion’s board who follows this lead is not merely going along to get along or looking the
other way; they are complicit in ugliness. I believe the root of this is the deterioration of a personal relationship between
a member of the Lower Merion Township Board of Commissioners and a Planning Commission member. It has nothing
to do with ability to serve. It’s just petty political retribution.

Allowing personal animus to rule over better judgments is not something our commissioners purportedly allow in any
other facet of governmental decision-making. Allowing themselves to be pawns in a personal, not merely political
agenda subverts true democracy. I think that is wrong. We all know there is always a big difference between following
the letter of the law and embracing the true spirit of it.

Residents are becoming increasingly angry when it is self-evident time and again that what residents say does not
matter and most of what goes on seems decided ahead of time and in non-public meetings everyone knows exist, yet
no one admits they exist.

In Lower Merion many on the board have forgotten who it is they serve and why. If they want us to embrace them as
leaders and stop fighting them on everything, then they must act like leaders, which for some means stepping away
from the pack from time to time and demonstrating independent thought. For others it means to just stop the theory and

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Reader's Response: In LM free speech still comes at personal cost - Main Line Media News Page 2 of 2

practice of whomever gets all the toys wins.

As I left the meeting I knew I would take heat for my comments because that is the nature of Lower Merion politics: if
you are among the “sheeple” or other sundry disciples, you are safe. Speak your mind, you are not. In Lower Merion
free speech still comes at personal cost.

The day after the meeting, an unrelated editorial was published online that appeared in Main Line Suburban Life. That
editorial was written by someone I know, about his views on Radnor Township. Though I had nothing to do with the
editorial and the topic was specific to another municipality, there I was the subject of the comments online.

Why? Because I spoke out in Lower Merion. Simple cause and effect: I speak out about something and if it hits too
close to the throne the knives come out. To me it is indicative of yet greater problems in Lower Merion.

I should be used to this by now. But it is still mind-boggling to me that in these communities in which we live, there are
so many intelligent people (including elected officials) who will waste so much time telling any person active in the
community that they are wrong every single time rather than use some of that energy to see if perhaps some of us are
right.

Some of the comments this time against me were quite vile. As one commenter in support of me said in their comment,
this is indeed like writing on a virtual bathroom wall. Part of why this is done is to discourage others from speaking out.
It’s pretty basic.

It amounts to silliness. Keep on speaking out in your community if you have something to say or feel strongly about an
issue. When the knives come out like they have so immediately over this issue with me, it is very telling. When they say
I doth protest too much it tells me I am protesting just enough to make people think. Sometimes that is all it takes.

I am, however, still standing.

Carla Zambelli is a resident of Haverford and a frequent contributor to the Main Line Times.

URL: http://www.mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2010/01/27/main_line_times/opinion/doc4b608f269cb17632826609.prt

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