As the new year begins, Amherst has a chance for reflection and renewal. We now have the final report from the Charter Review Committee (CRC) with the hope that it will strengthen the town charter and improve how local government works. The committee’s report offers a good-faith account of why some residents feel frustrated. Meetings run long. Decisions feel delayed or inconclusive. Volunteers report burnout. Councilors and staff struggle to manage crowded agendas and intense public expectations. Something is not working as well as it should.
The CRC deserves credit for naming these problems honestly. It listened closely to residents, staff, and elected officials. Its report surfaces real tensions in how Amherst governs itself. Throughout the report, the committee shows an awareness that expanding opportunities for public input only strengthens democracy when institutions retain the capacity to deliberate, decide, and act. In doing so, it also points to a deeper structural issue without naming it.
My reading of the report is this: Amherst does not suffer from too little democracy. Amherst has built many ways for residents to participate. But our town lacks the ability to translate that input into timely, accountable decisions. It has over-emphasized process at the expense of governing effectively.
The CRC’s report makes this clear. Take the definition of a “public forum.” Current rules require that more than half of a meeting be devoted to public comment. As the report notes, this has produced “extra meetings, extra meeting minutes, and dead time.” Councilors sometimes must wait out the clock even when no one remains to speak. We can’t ignore the larger lesson: rules designed to maximize participation can end up undermining effective deliberation by our town leaders.
This is not an isolated case. Amherst has many boards and committees. It has multiple public comment periods, petition thresholds, and veto provisions. Each reflects a sincere commitment to inclusion and transparency. Together, however, they create a system that is crowded, slow, and difficult to steer.
One local example stands out. Amherst has about 40 resident committees, in addition to elected bodies. The committee heard repeatedly from volunteers who worked “for months or years on proposals, some requested by the Council,” only to see that work “sit on a shelf, get ignored.”
This is not a failure of civic engagement. It is a failure of institutional design. Amherst is good at generating participation but less effective at turning participation into decisions. The result is frustration for residents and gridlock for those tasked with governing. We have seen this with extraordinarily lengthy and costly delays to building a new school and library.
These tensions are not new. Political thinkers from James Madison onward have warned that participation must be structured to filter and refine public input. Without that structure, democratic systems risk paralysis, dominance by organized factions, and the erosion of public trust when governments cannot act — a lesson the framers learned under the Articles of Confederation, when weak institutional design undermined effective self-government.
That history matters here. Amherst is revisiting its charter for a reason. We are once again grappling with how to balance voice and authority, participation and performance.
Too often, we equate democratic health with the sheer volume of participation. But democracy is not only about voice. It is also about delivering results desired by citizens. A system that listens endlessly but struggles to decide will eventually disappoint the very people it seeks to empower.
Participation matters. The harder question is when and where participation improves governance, and when it gets in the way. Early input can help set priorities and build legitimacy. Late-stage interventions, layered onto complex processes with multiple veto points, often stall execution and favor the most organized and persistent minorities over the broader public.
The CRC’s report paints a picture of a town rich in civic energy. It also reveals institutions that ask too much of volunteers, too much of part-time (poorly compensated) councilors, and too little of structures designed to move decisions forward. Agendas are crowded. Authority is fragmented. Responsibility is diffuse.
Clearer roles, fewer choke points, and stronger agenda-setting would not weaken democracy in Amherst. They would strengthen it.
One way to advance this conversation would be to take seriously a suggestion the committee notes but does not endorse: considering a mayoral form of government. An elected mayor could provide clearer authority, more visible leadership, and tighter accountability to voters. It could allow the council to focus more fully on legislating and oversight. Such a change would require careful study, broad public discussion and a town vote. But it reflects a basic insight: democratic legitimacy depends not only on participation, but on the ability to govern effectively.
As Amherst digests the committee’s report, the choice is not between democracy and efficiency. The real challenge is designing institutions that honor both. The CRC has opened that door. The new year offers a chance to walk through it — with openness, humility, and a willingness to rethink how local democracy works best.
Raymond La Raja is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-director of the UMass Poll.