Turning the Page in St. Helena

Neighbors,

The City has announced that the City Council and City Manager Anil Comelo have mutually agreed to part ways. Because personnel matters discussed in closed session are confidential under state law, I will not comment further on those discussions.

What I do want to talk about is where St. Helena goes from here.

We are at a fork in the road. This is an opportunity to choose a better path, rebuild trust, and begin a new chapter for the town.

To me, that starts with remembering something simple: this town is far from broken. We have dedicated staff. We have residents who care deeply. We’re still a community people want to be part of, and we have a strong volunteer spirit. We have real strengths to build on, if we are willing to stop talking ourselves into decline.

That does not mean ignoring problems or pretending everything is fine. Criticism is healthy. Accountability is healthy. Hard questions are healthy. But there is a difference between a town that faces its problems honestly and a town that gets stuck in a posture of defeatism. One leads to continuous improvement. The other leads to civic exhaustion.

I worry that we all may have gotten used to the second posture. Communities do not fall apart overnight. They erode gradually, in small ways. Bit by bit, people start to believe nothing will ever improve, and cynicism moves in and takes up residence. Small acts of kindness get written off as weakness. We lose grace. We assume the worst. We turn disagreement into enmity. In a small town, that poison spreads fast.

It starts with the public square. Over the last year, the tone of our civic life has changed, and not for the better. We need more honest engagement aimed at building common understanding. Less suspicion and less speculation about people’s motives, and more willingness to hear context. We also need to get away from the habit of looking for the “gotcha” moment, where people demand perfect precision and flawless language from everyone else while applying no such standard to themselves. That dynamic does not create the conditions for common understanding, even when people genuinely believe in different paths. It produces drama, resentment, and unnecessary division. A healthier civic culture does not require everyone to agree. It requires people to disagree without demeaning each other.

It also means reconnecting with what is going well. Our staff continue to show up every day and do hard work under difficult conditions. They are not abstractions. They are human beings serving this town in a climate that has become harder than it should be. If we want a stronger St. Helena, we need to support the people doing that work, not make public service feel like punishment. The Mayor and I met with key staff last week, and they were clear that the tone of the public square is taking a real toll on morale and making valued employees question their future here. That is a warning sign, and we should all take it seriously.

Support of staff and the people who serve on other city bodies does not mean blind loyalty. It does not mean less transparency. Residents have every right to ask questions, expect answers, and expect accountability. But there is a point where scrutiny stops being about informing the public and starts becoming part of the cycle that wears people down and convinces good employees that this is not a place where they can do their best work. If we hollow out our own institution by driving away capable staff, elected officials, and commissioners we are not helping the town or ourselves.

City leadership has a role in this too. We need to lower the temperature, be candid about city problems, communicate plainly, and treat residents and staff with respect and dignity. The Mayor has worked hard to do that, and I have tried to do the same.

But leadership alone cannot set the tone of an entire community. Others in the community have spoken up as well, and I am grateful for that. Still, it cannot be occasional, and it cannot be left to a handful of people. If St. Helena is going to change course, more residents have to help create the kind of civic culture they want to engage in.

So here is my ask. Stay engaged. Ask hard questions. Hold all of us accountable. But do it in a way that leaves room for context, for different perspectives, and for the reality that listening does not always lead everyone to the same conclusion. And through all of it, keep sight of the basic dignity of the people on the other side of an issue.

And when you see the conversation slide into personal attacks, pile-ons, and public shaming, consider saying something that lowers the temperature and reaffirms the basic values this town ought to stand for. If we want a better civic culture, we have to be willing to help create it.

This town has a lot going for it. My hope is that we use this moment to steady ourselves, treat each other better, and move forward together.