Different responsibilities require different forms of selection. New Canaan’s Charter Revision Commission is considering whether to convert appointed boards into elected ones. The impulse is democratic and therefore respectable. It is not invariably prudent.
Elections confer legitimacy, and those who stand for office accept burdens that are neither light nor ceremonial. They function, in effect, as chief executives of the public trust—answerable to voters not only for their own decisions but for the quality of those they empower. That accountability is real. It is also sufficient.
Elections impose a particular set of incentives. They reward fluency, resilience, and the important ability to simplify and explain complex issues. Those are political virtues. They are not synonymous with the virtues required to govern land use or municipal finance, where the work is granular, technical, and frequently resistant to simplification.
Planning & Zoning and the Board of Finance are not easy platforms for politics. They are instruments of judgment. Their members must read closely, listen at length, and decide carefully. They must evaluate stormwater reports, housing statutes, bond structures, and pension obligations—tasks that demand patience and, at times, a necessary distance between public sentiment and regulatory application. That distance is not indifference; it is discipline.
James Madison, in Federalist No. 51, warned of the enduring tension between power and human nature: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” The architecture of governance must therefore account for human incentives. Elections, by design, tether officials to public sentiment. That tether is appropriate for legislative bodies. It is less appropriate for quasi-judicial ones.
Members of Planning & Zoning operate under obligations akin to those of judges. They are expected to weigh evidence without prejudice, even when public opinion is pronounced. A candidate who campaigns on predetermined outcomes—approving or rejecting categories of development—enters office with a record that can be construed as bias. The campaign itself becomes a form of pre-judgment.
Experienced local officials have observed the consequences elsewhere. In municipalities where land-use boards are elected, decisions can drift toward electoral calculation. The evidentiary record competes with the next ballot. That competition corrodes public confidence. Law becomes contingent, and predictability—a cornerstone of property rights—diminishes.
The present appointment system, by contrast, is deliberate. It subjects candidates to interviews, scrutiny, and evaluation of their technical aptitude and temperament. It allows for balance—professional, intellectual, and personal—so that boards function as cohesive bodies rather than assemblages of individual brands. Appointment is not the absence of accountability; it is accountability exercised through elected officials who must answer for their choices.
There is precedent for insulating certain functions from immediate political pressure. Federal Reserve governors are appointed to long terms to preserve monetary stability. Federal judges receive lifetime appointments to ensure judicial independence. These arrangements are not repudiations of democracy; they are refinements of it, recognizing that some decisions require distance from electoral urgency.
Local governance has its analogues. The Board of Finance must deliberate on debt, taxation, and long-term obligations with a view extending beyond the next election cycle. Planning & Zoning must apply statutes consistently, even when consistency frustrates popular preference. These are disciplines of restraint.
An electoral system would also constrict the pool of service. Unaffiliated voters, who constitute a substantial share of the electorate, would face structural barriers in partisan contests. Professionals with relevant expertise—lawyers, financiers, engineers—may be restricted from holding elective office or deterred by its demands. The town would forfeit experience precisely where it is most needed.
Reform is not precluded. Terms can be lengthened; training expanded; disclosure requirements strengthened; measures which improve performance without altering the character of the roles.
The Commission is also examining the Charter’s requirement that members of the Board of Finance be “taxpayers of the town.” The phrase is imprecise and exclusionary. Renters contribute to property taxes through rent; residents contribute in varied, measurable ways. To condition eligibility for public service on a narrow definition of taxpayer status risks inequity and invites legal challenge.
John Adams wrote that the aim of government is “a government of laws, and not of men.” That aim is served when roles are matched with the method of selection best suited to their function. Elections have their place. So do appointments. The responsibility of elected officials is to make those appointments wisely—and to answer to the public when they do not.
For boards whose work is exacting, unglamorous, and indispensable, the method of selection should favor competence, independence, and steadiness.
