Listening, Understanding and the Decisions that follow

by: Michael J Badagliacco, “MJB”

It is not surprising, that some claim I am violating my campaign promise to listen and understand simply because I do not adopt their conclusions. That charge is false. I am listening. I am understanding the positions presented. Agreement is a separate matter. Listening and understanding can occur without the outcome being an automatic yes or no or agreement happening. 

What is often missing from these criticisms is the equally important commitment I made throughout the campaign. Sometimes we simply have to agree to disagree. I have said many times, “you don’t unplug your values the way you unplug a toaster”. Asking an elected official to abandon the principles that earned public trust and adopt a new set of values after the election is disingenuous at best.

Listening Is Not Capitulation

Listening requires attention and a genuine effort to grasp another person’s reasoning. Understanding means I can accurately restate that view. Neither action requires surrendering my own judgment. If every conversation ended with the elected official yielding to the loudest, most persistent voice, representation would collapse into constant negotiation rather than principled decision-making.

I have seen and heard the arguments in articles, public comments, private meetings, and emails. In many cases I now understand the perspective more clearly. That clarity does not always alter my assessment of what is best for the city as a whole. Understanding someone does not require endorsing the policy they favor.

Values Are Not Optional Accessories

Voters elect candidates based on the values those candidates present. Changing those values after the fact breaks faith with the people who cast their ballots in reliance on them. I offered clear commitments during the campaign based on fiscal discipline, constitutional governance, infrastructure planning, the proper limits of local authority and more. Supporters expected continuity, not reinvention.

An Op-Ed in a Montrose Mirror recently argued that, now elected, I must represent all who disagree with me by adjusting my positions to accommodate them. The logic is flawed. Those who voted an official into office did so because they wanted that official’s stated principles carried forward. Demanding a reverse course to satisfy opponents turns the election into a temporary formality. That expectation is unreasonable and almost always one-sided. Where the side who disagrees with the positions held demands the elected official capitulate to their position, rather than understanding the position the elected official holds is likely one of the reasons they are now in office.

Representation of the Whole, Not Captured by the Few

An elected official represents the constituency as a whole. That duty includes protecting the rights of every resident, including those who voted against the winning candidate. It does not require adopting the policy preferences of every individual or group. Representation means weighing competing claims against the broader public interest and the platform on which the official was elected, not capitulation because there is an angry contingency who continue to frequent specific meetings.

If the standard were that every elected official must continually reshape positions to match whoever objects most strongly, elections would lose their meaning. Campaigns would become temporary persuasion rather than contests of substance. Once in office, the official would face endless pressure to abandon the commitments that produced the victory. 

Agreeing to Disagree Strengthens Governance

The ability to listen carefully, understand a differing view, and still maintain one’s own position is not stubbornness or ego, it is integrity. It is the practical reality of representative government. People of good faith will reach different conclusions about spending, infrastructure, and the balance of authority. Pretending those differences can always be resolved by one side yielding creates false expectations.

I will continue to listen and seek understanding. I will also continue to govern according to the principles I presented to voters. When those paths diverge from particular requests, the answer will sometimes and possibly often, be no. That outcome does not prove a failure to listen. It proves that listening and agreement are not the same act.

Voters are entitled to know where their elected officials stand and to hold them accountable for consistency. They are not entitled to demand that those officials rewrite their core commitments after the votes are counted. The former preserves accountability. The latter dissolves it. I intend to keep the distinction clear.