Why Fluoridation isn’t coming to Hartford
Here are some facts first, so we are all on the same page:
Q) Who has the power to decide whether or not fluoride is added to the White River Jct, Wilder or Quechee water systems?
A) The town manager
Q) Will the town manager add it?
A) The town manager has repeatedly said that he will do so only if the Selectboard votes a resolution instructing him to do so
Q) Has such a resolution been offered?
A) No
Q) Could the town vote on it?
A) Sure, but the vote would be advisory only
Q) How could such a vote come to be?
A) The Selectboard could have put an article on a warning for town meeting Voting Day or for the annual Floor Meeting, but it did not. Citizens could circulate a petition and get 5% of the registered voters to sign, around 300 signatures, but that did not happen either. The deadlines for doing that were last month.
I think you can all see that for all the flurry of activity around fluoridation, there is not going to be a vote and there isn’t going to be any Selectboard vote, at least not anytime soon.
About the only thing that I can forsee happening at this point would be someone offering an advisory resolution during “other business” at the Floor Meeting on March 29, but that meeting is typically so lightly attended that any resolution, one way or another, would demonstrate nothing.
In the grand scheme of the critically important issues that the town faces, namely, our lack of flexibility due to health insurance being jacked up a half a million a year at the same time our grand list has shrunk by 5 percent, the kerfluffle over fluoridation is a minor distraction.
On the issue of fluoridation, I’ll stick with the scientists at the Center for Disease Control and urge everyone not to accept the dramatic claims presented by those against until they have had a chance to review the CDC materials, which are readily available online. That said, I predict that the fear, uncertainty, and doubt campaign plus the general sense that science is failing us and government can’t do anything right will mean that fluoridation will never come to Hartford.
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