Citizenship, Rules, and Human Relations

            When the organizers of a music festival called Apple Jam chose, for their next venue, a piece of property eight miles up the road I live on (and two miles from my house), the residents were alarmed. We signed petitions to ask the county not to grant the permit, and we filled the courthouse at the hearing.

            That is the citizenship part: that so many of us were willing to take the time and the travel to come to town for a hearing that concerned us, and that the governmental process permitted that kind of citizen involvement.

            At the hearing, the parliamentarian explained in detail which laws were relevant and how the applicant had met those requirements. Then, one by one, people came up to speak for or against granting the permit. We residents talked about the dangerous situation with traffic on our narrow, winding, two-lane, shoulderless road, with 2500 Apple Jam people going up and down it in RVs, camping vans, pick-up trucks, SUVs, and other cars. We talked about the difficulty of getting emergency vehicles, either to the site or to residents. We talked about fire danger, drugs and alcohol use, people turning up the wrong driveway looking for the event or asking for water or gas, the creek as prime habitat for the endangered coho salmon, and so forth.

            Then things took a surprising turn, and this is the human relations part. The man who had submitted the permit and who, it turned out, had started the Apple Jam several years ago, asked, at the end of his testimony, whether, if he withdrew his application, he would get back his deposit. He said that the festival people had already listened to the community and didn’t want conflicts, so they had found an alternative venue and would withdraw their application if they wouldn’t lose their money.

            Suddenly we didn’t dislike the Apple Jam folks, after all. Suddenly they were just musicians who wanted to have a festival. Suddenly it sounded like a good idea, nothing different from hippie festivals I myself attended back in the day. But we had never thought the Apple Jam itself a bad idea, only that the chosen venue was unsuitable.

            Then the rules. The parliamentarian suggested that the applicants, instead of withdrawing their request, could continue the process and let the permit be either denied or granted, after which they could, if they so desired, not use the permit. The money, he said, was only a deposit, so the part which had not been spent already in putting forward the process would be returned. The applicant agreed to continue with the process, though it seemed superfluous now. I don’t quite understand why the parliamentarian didn’t just let the applicant withdraw the application, as he had expressed his willingness to do, and let the process be at an end.

            But the process ground on. The three county commissioners spoke to the issue, a motion was made to deny the permit, and a vote was taken: two for the motion, one against (on the grounds that the applicants had met the criteria as specified by law). The permit was denied.

               The residents were relieved. They excited to have won.

            As I left the courthouse, I met the organizer who had offered to withdraw the application. I shook his hand, thanked him for his generosity, and wished him luck with the festival. Then, as a reciprocal gesture of generosity and thanks, another of the neighbors on the road suggested that we would take up donations from residents to help defray the costs the festival people entailed for having to go through the application and hearing process. We all smiled, shook hands, wished everyone well, and went home.

            During that short time we had had to notify everyone on the road about the proposed event and to organize our protests, there were mumblings about getting a lawyer to help us stop the event from happening here if the permit had been granted, a lawsuit that, I think, would have gotten nowhere, since everything was done legally.

            No one during that time mentioned talking directly with the Apple Jam folks themselves. It seems like such an easy solution, now. We know, now, that they were receptive to community relations. It was they, not we, who looked beyond the rules.

            What I am left with is a feeling of gratitude, not just for the outcome of the citizenship process but also for the lesson the Apple Jam folks taught me: that while citizenship is a good thing and rules are necessary, human relations based on genuine respect and generosity of spirit trump everything else.