To the editor:

On Monday, Oct. 5, 2020, the United Veteran’s Council of Barrington held a rally in support of the adoption of an apolitical flag policy at the Veterans Honor Roll near the Barrington Town Hall. Around 150-200 concerned citizens were in attendance and the event was covered by local news outlets to include the Barrington Times and

Channel 10. The event was also live streamed via Facebook and canstill be viewed on the Barrington UVC’s Facebook page.

Amazingly, the Barrington Town Council did not bother to acknowledge its occurrence and for the second straight month in a row, they chose to refuse to adopt an official town flag policy. 

Their tone deafness on the issue was extremely disheartening for the Barrington UVC and its supporters. The Barrington Town Council has instead decided to leave this issue for the next elected Town Council to resolve.  This makes the upcoming November General Election more important than ever.

In addition to making your voice heard on national races, the UVC asks you to choose carefully when considering your selection for the next Barrington Town Council. Only two of the four local candidates running for council this year have expressed an opinion in favor of keeping our American Flag pole free from political banners.

It is time for the Town Council to “Think and Act Locally” instead of addressing global and national concerns that have little to no bearing on our town and its community.

Recent Town Council Meetings have devolved into marathon group think sessions full of virtue signaling

and devoid of any real substance. Instead of concerning themselves with the actual management of our municipality, like resolving our town’s constant and frequent storm power outages, the council has

focused on non-applicable feel good initiatives to solve the social ills of the world. 

Thomas Tip O'Neill once said all politics are local; however, in Barrington, we have effectively replaced local town governance with national activism.

Unfortunately, the town council president has effectively lost control of the meetings and under the current virtual Zoom environment, large segments of population have been disenfranchised, deplatformed and marginalized. How ironic given the council’s desire to be more diverse and inclusive. 

In retrospect, I will acknowledge that our town does have a diversity problem; however, the problem is that our

town council lacks a "Diversity of Thought". I encourage everyone to vote on Nov. 3, 2020 and not to ignore the down ticket races.

Time to return good local governance to the Town of Barrington.

Respectfully,

Paul C. Dulchinos

Barrington