To the editor:

I have sat through many Portsmouth Town Council meetings, and the tone at the Aug. 11 meeting was something that seems to be a pattern that I see all too often.

Twice that evening, exchanges — between council members and the town administrator, and between a council member and a resident — turned heated, and both times it was a council member who escalated. Disagreement was not the problem. Disagreement is how representative government works. The problem was the way it was expressed. During one exchange, councilor David Reise raised his voice and pointed his finger at the town administrator. In another, councilor Mary McDowell took issue with a resident's question and responded by raising her voice and confronting the resident.

Council members have every right, and an obligation, to ask tough questions of the town administrator. Residents have that same right when they question decisions or ask how taxpayer money is being spent. Those questions do not always have to be comfortable, and council members do not have to agree with them.

But they do deserve a respectful response.

Portsmouth has been here before. Not long ago, residents rightly objected when a member of a previous council raised his voice at the people in front of him. That behavior was called unacceptable then. It should be unacceptable now — regardless of who is doing it.

Our elected officials are going to disagree. They should. Residents are going to question their decisions. They should. That is how representative government works. What we should not accept is a culture where difficult questions are met with hostility, raised voices or personal confrontation.

The stakes are simple. The town administrator works for the people of Portsmouth. The residents who stand at the podium are the people this council was elected to represent. Neither is an opponent to be shouted down. While we may disagree on how to do it, everyone at the meeting is trying to make Portsmouth a better place to live. Public office carries a responsibility to conduct even sharp disagreements with professionalism.

I hope everyone who was in the room that night, and everyone who watches the meeting recording, asks the same question: Is this the way we want our town's business conducted?

Disagreement is part of democracy. Disrespect should not be.

David Fiorillo

Portsmouth

Editor’s note: Fiorillo is a candidate for Portsmouth Town Council this November.