Focus on What We Can Do

An article in the Sunday Globe summarized the months-long legislative saga of the Wegmans beer and wine license and how that relates to the special Town Meeting on Tuesday and quoted Town Administrator Michael Jaillet:

The truth is, we don't know how this will affect things," said Town Administrator Michael Jaillet. "We will need to explain in detail how [the Town Meeting and legislative debates] are interrelated.

I hope we do not spend hours at Town Meeting speculating about Wegmans, Westwood Station, and what Representative Galvin from Canton will do next or what other surprises might happen. For me, the bottom line is that what we voted on this spring was bad policy and I think Article 1 is good policy. If the Wegman's bill fails to get approved, then they can use one of the 3 licenses authorized by Article 1.

We can't control what is going on in the legislature, or in the minds of potential tenants of Westwood Station, or the financial markets. So I think we should make a clear statement, without equivocation, that we either support beer and wine sales in food stores, or we oppose it.

Nevertheless, I decided to make a "decision matrix" here of the possible outcomes:

I suppose there are some people who would only vote for Article 1 because they think Article 18 was unfair...but they would rather see no alcohol at all. So if you think Wegmans will ultimately fail, you might feel "safe" voting your true feelings. Even though I strongly support Article 1, I hope there are not many people who feel they are in that dilemma. If you really think the alcohol is so bad, then I'd say vote your conscience on that and let things sort themselves out.

We can't predict what future surprises await. We should answer the questions in front of us--not try to figure out the most strategic vote.