Codger’s Column: After Albert

Codger was deeply disappointed when Albert Dickson announced last year that he was not running for re-election to the Town Board after only one term.

For four years, Codger had admired Dickson as quietly heroic in the face of Boards which relentlessly dismissed most of his concerns about water use and abuse.

How did he keep sitting there, looking down in his default defensive position and taking it? At least in public. Except for that one Dickson Moment.

Ah, that was some moment, thought Codger. You didn’t have to be a local politics wonk to appreciate it.

As Codger remembers, yet another obscenely large and unnecessary new house intruding on the wetlands had come before the Board for permission to put some wealthie’s edifice complex above the common good. It was an almost 10,000-square-foot double-decker (a special permit is needed beyond 6,000), with enough bedrooms for a convention, enough bathrooms for the Super Bowl.

Dickson looked up and asked the Board, “Do we have the will to do something?” Everybody else looked down.

The issue, as usual, concerned water in all its versions, clean, nitrate-loaded, salty, not enough. Per standard practice, Board members nodded over piles of papers, mumbled the possibility of deleting one powder room, please, and said, “Sure, Boss.”

Albert Dickson looked up and said, “No.” A single vote for progress and sanity.

Codger was awestruck. As far as is known, Dickson became the first councilmember in history to vote against what Codger views as the regular rollover for realtors and restaurateurs. He lost, of course.

“Did you quit over that four-to-one vote?” said Codger.

Dickson looked down. He and Codger were sitting at his kitchen table with Dickson’s wife, Mary, and Maggie, one of their two toy poodles. “You’ve come for dirt?” asked Dickson. He was smiling, There would be no dirt.

Codger was frustrated. Why are most of the firebrands on this Island on the wrong side? Dickson is an honorable, reticent man who refuses to trash his colleagues or express feelings beyond his own “sense of failure to engage and motivate” other politicians to protect the aquifer and at least slow the drift toward Shelhampton.

As far as the Board’s regular rollover — is it their fear of litigation, inertia, corruption, lack of vision — Dickson will only go so far as describe it as their tendency “to prioritize property owners at the expense of the community at large.”

Dickson is 68, a large man with a luxuriant snowy beard, yet he retains a certain barefoot boy with cheek of tan affect that recalls his watery, sandy upbringing on the Island working at the pharmacy and on the North Ferry. His grandmother and mother were postmistresses at the Heights.

He often evokes his great uncle, Joe Mack, 20 years the highway superintendent, who was the driving force behind the establishment of the town landings: Mack wanted to assure access to the shore without having to depend on the noblesse oblige of waterfront property owners.

Joe Mack’s enormous legacy, thinks Codger, playing shrink, was an inspiration and a burden to Dickson. After college and then living and working in Seattle and Red Bank, N.J., Dickson retired and returned full-time to the Island with his second wife, Mary, a former family therapist.

He came with the call to “pay back” for his enchanted childhood and “make a difference.” He served on the Water Advisory Committee, then ran for the Board.

“So what happened?” asked Codger. “One term and out. Were you naive, arrogant, out of tune with new times?”

Mary, who is way saltier than Dickson, left the room.

“I came in touch with my mortality,” said Dixon. “Health issues. Wanted to spend more time at home.”

“I had the sense they condescended to you,” said Codger. “Patted you on the head when you tried to protect the environment.”

“Yes, I was patronized,” said Dickson. “It was extremely frustrating. I don’t want to come across as angry because I’m not. I did express myself in executive sessions.”

Codger wished he had been there. Dickson can be passionate and specific about protecting the drinking water from nitrates and other poisons loosed by inadequate septic systems. At the least, he would mandate upgrades if not new systems for new houses and for major renovation projects. But it’s expensive, no easy sell to politicians without the will.

“You’re not going to just hang out at home,” said Codger. “There are committees, causes. You could be a watchdog.”

“Before I ever get involved again,” said Dickson looking up, “I’d want to know who I’m getting involved with.”

“That sounds promising. You’re not gone for good.”

“I just stepped out for a while.”

“Don’t stay out too long,” said Codger. ”The Island as you know it won’t wait.”