There are essentially two reasons I encourage people to become involved in government and politics at the local level.

First, it’s the closest to the voters and their community, so it should be easier (although still very difficult) to overcome the institutional advantage of insiders.  Most people in a city or town don’t pay much attention to local civics, and a large portion of those who do are part of the vested-interests crowd.  But when a topic has to do with their neighbors, it’s a little bit more possible to change people’s minds, and if not, it ought to be more likely at the local level to get other people to be better informed — perhaps well enough informed to get involved.

Second, local government and politics is very educational.  Many of the battles are fought over the same sorts of things, and on the same types of battlegrounds, as state and national issues.  What’s more, the local players tend not to be as slick, so their maneuvers are easier to see and make for better lessons to the general public.

More for the second reason than the first, I took a little time, on Tiverton Fact Check, to analyze one aspect of the latest incident in the ongoing saga of town government’s making up the rules as it goes.  Of particular interest is the degree to which the Town Solicitor, Andrew Teitz, has pushed the envelope when it comes to the Ethics Commission’s tolerance for corruption provided that nobody involved is not in government.

I’ll have more on this in the future, but he’s going so far as to tell the council what he’s going to argue when he defends a client before it a couple weeks later and to advise the council from the witness table while it’s trying to make a motion in favor of his client.

This is one of those fine cracks in the foundation of our society that nobody seems to be too concerned about but that really deserves more attention than a largely apathetic electorate is likely to pay it.