For twenty years I shared the same Zip Code with the Romney's, they lived on tony Belmont Hill and I lived at the bottom of Belmont Hill. These are my recollections of Mitt, citizen of Belmont, Massachusetts, four square miles of leafy suburb. None. I never crossed paths with him. I was active in many things Belmont, including serving as an elected Town Meeting Member in a town run by volunteers.
The self proclaimed "Town of Homes" shelters people of all income levels. It borders Cambridge and is a short hop to Boston. Many illustrious people have called Belmont home. They include a Nobel Prize winner, the future Princess of Japan, a Presidential advisor, a MacArthur grant recipient, a best selling author, an astronaut, a major TV producer and many academics of note. People of that stature manage to give of themselves outside the confines of their religious affiliation. Part of the curriculum of Belmont High School is to do community service. Venture capitalist and Mormon Bishop was on par with the likes of many of his fellow townspeople.
In my memory, Mitt never served on a Town Board, participated in Town Meeting, helped with fundraisers or any of the many opportunities available in it's rich civic life. Belmont, though relatively wealthy has been cash strapped since the passage of a property tax limitation initiative in 1980. The schools suffer a chronic lack of resources and every time a school needs funds for capital improvements or replacement (a notable case being a fire) citizen committees must put an override on the ballot and shepherd its passage. The community came together over the summer the Middle School burned to find space for the displaced students and volunteers packed up classrooms and local businesses donated food for the effort. No visible help from the Romney's in this emergency in their community. The Romney's benefitted from all this volunteerism in the town government in that it helps to keep property taxes lower. They were passive users of town services instead of participating in the effort to keep the town solvent. You know- the 47 percenters.
More than a decade after reluctantly moving away, I still hold this community close to my heart. It taught me how civic action is carried out for the common good. Mitt on the other hand calls it home only when it's convenient to his wallet or political ambitions. Since he left for the Salt Lake City Olympics he has variously declared Utah, New Hampshire and his son's basement in Belmont his legal residence. I'm not sure what he calls home today.
Mitt's sons attended the Belmont Public schools before they attended the Belmont Hill School. In Mitt and Ann's (what is available) tax return there is mention of a donation that year to the private Belmont Hill School, but notable in its absence is that there is no mention of a donation to the Foundation For Belmont Education which raises funds to aid public education in Belmont. Ann and Mitt's donations to charity are mostly directed to the LDS church and the church decides where to direct its help to those in need.
Mitt would have us believe that he is just a regular guy who has an understanding of community and the notion that we are all in this together, that we sink or swim together. This child of privilege and part of the LDS church elite claims to understand the struggles of all of us. In fact he is politically tone deaf when it comes to the 99%. His position on many issues has changed according to political expediency. He has lived his life apart from the rest of us, keeping to his business and church and in his whole life has not learned who his fellow Americans are.
Ted Kennedy was spot on in 1994. Mitt still hasn't shared who he is with the people he would lead. We don't need to find out the hard way that we never really knew who it was that was asking for our vote. Judge him by his deeds, not his words.