Sorry.

I’m not a fan of George Bush’s, but I will say this about him. It took some guts yesterday to take responsibility for the mistakes made in the Iraq conflict. It takes a big man to publicly own up to a mistake. It shows a level of character that I never though George Bush had.

On Nantucket, we have a number of people who have been wrong, and they could help heal the problems on this island if they would simply take a page out of the George Bush playbook and admit their mistakes so we could all move on.

The Planning Board and staff, and in particular, Chairman Don Visco and Planning Director, Andrew Vorce are a prime examples. They sent a letter to the alternates that should never have been sent. They put some accusations on paper and sent that letter to the Board of Selectmen, the appointing body for the alternates, making it part of the public record.

You can read the letter here.

Accusing three people of being drunk, asleep, awol from important meetings and racist, without the specificity of who did what and when is bad enough. This was done in public. In mean-spirited way. When I owned an ad agency in Boston and I had a problem with one of my employees’ performance, I would sit down with them behind closed doors and talk to them about it. I would not put it in a memo and distribute it to everyone in the Boston ad community limiting their ability to find a job if they ever wanted to go elsewhere (which is essentially what the Planning Board has done in at least one alternate’s situation).

To add insult to injury, Chairman Visco and other members have been sarcastic, insulting, loud, rude and threatening to the alternates in at least two public meetings. Is this the kind of behavior we want from our elected officials and their staff?

The interesting thing is, having discussed this with two of the three alternates, it’s clear to me that the Planning Board could make this whole sad episode disappear if they would do one thing.

Apologize.

If the Planning Board publicly apologized everything would be fine. The alternate’s names could be cleared. And we could all move on.

People make mistakes. People say and do things out of anger. I’ve done it myself. But when I’m wrong, and I realize it, I say so. I apologize and try to make things better.

Now, consider the possibility that the Planning Board perhaps does not want to make things better. Maybe their aim is to create a poo storm of invective and lay it at the Board of Selectman’s doorstep because they feel the BOS has been treading on their turf. Maybe they have some larger plan in mind to get these alternates to quit or spend a pile of money on legal fees.

If that’s true, they should be ashamed of themselves for their behavior, for taking time away from the business at hand (like, uh, the 41-81d master plan, a draft of which has been promised now for over a year) and for the financial and legal liability to which they have exposed the town. Ultimately, it is we, the taxpayers, who will pay the lawyer bills and any settlement costs that result in the event the Planning Board does get sued.

“We’re sorry,” could solve a lot of problems here. “We’re sorry,” could save some money and keep the town out of court. “We’re sorry,” could save the Planning Board members from being sued as individuals in addition to the town being sued. “We’re sorry,” could make it possible for the town to continue on with its valuable work. “We’re sorry,” might even make it possible for Visco to be re-elected to his seat this spring.

The thing is, “we’re sorry,” does not appear to be forthcoming any time soon. I guess some people have a hard time putting Nantucket First.