A Veil to Protect Community

When a veil of ignorance is better for connection

I had an interesting experience at a recent council meeting.

In the run up to the election, some residents were expressing discontent about government transparency. Similarly, there is a community issue now that some residents feel has not been appropriately publicized with enough time or opportunity for the public to affect change. Putting facts aside, both the Mayor and I have discussed improving community communication and transparency in our new terms, and I have no doubt other councilmembers feel the same way.

So, at a recent meeting, our City Administrator shared that she intended to start publishing a report following council meetings that would summarize meeting activities and decisions made. I don’t know if this was her idea, the Mayor’s, or someone else’s, but I thought it sounded great. It felt like a practical way to meet people where they are. Not everyone has the time—or frankly the inclination—to watch a two + hour meeting or dig through packet materials. A short recap is one small way to reduce friction between what happens inside Council Chambers and what community members experience outside it.

She followed that announcement with a question for council: would we be comfortable publishing how each councilmember voted on each item in those reports?

The question itself was reasonable. Our meetings are already open to the public. Community members attend in person, meetings are livestreamed, and recordings are available afterward. Anyone can go back at any time and see how any of us voted on any item. Still, there was something a bit awkward about the moment—not because of the question itself, but because we were being asked, publicly and in real time, to name our comfort level with a particular presentation of transparency.

I felt deeply conflicted.

At a fundamental level, I believe in truth. I believe that we are all entitled to the truth, and that the obfuscation of facts is what so often leads to mistrust and conflict. All of our votes are public record. Anyone can watch the meetings and hear the discussion that led to those votes. So why the inner turmoil?

The Mayor went around the room inviting each councilmember to share their thoughts. One raised a concern about personal safety, noting that attacks on political figures seem to be increasing nationally. Importantly, that councilmember also expressed support for transparency and suggested that we could try publishing names alongside votes and reassess later if it became a problem. Others largely agreed that transparency was good and that sharing names and votes was acceptable.

Then it was my turn.

This is where circumstance mattered — but not quite in the way I first thought. I happened to be attending the meeting remotely. I’d been fighting a bug and didn’t want to risk passing it along. What mattered most wasn’t that I couldn’t fully read the room — it was that I couldn’t feel how others were holding the moment as I prepared to speak.

I couldn’t sense whether other councilmembers tensed up, or relaxed, as the question made its way around the room. I couldn’t see whether anyone felt defensive as they answered, or relieved, or simply thoughtful. And when it came time for me to speak, that disconnection somehow left me more alone. I couldn’t see heads nodding in agreement — or in disbelief. I couldn’t tell whether people were looking at me like I was saying something obvious, something risky, or something strange. I was speaking without knowing whether what I was offering was landing as shared insight or solitary dissent.

That aloneness may have heightened my discomfort — or it may have grounded me more deeply in myself. I’m honestly not sure. Without the usual cues, I had less ability to adjust, soften, or reassure in real time. But I also had less temptation to perform. I couldn’t read the room, so I had to listen more closely inward. And perhaps that made it easier to speak honestly about the tension I was actually holding, rather than the position I thought I was supposed to defend.

I tried to quiet myself and speak from my heart. I wanted to be honest about both what I believe and where I felt conflict. I said, essentially, that I support transparency. I stand behind every vote I cast and am always willing to explain how I arrived at a decision. I would never hide from that.

And at the same time, I wasn’t sure it was wise to print names next to votes in a summary report.

Why?

Because I think there’s a meaningful difference between accessibility of information and presentation of information. In the run up to the election, we saw how quickly debates can become contentious. I worry that a single vote — stripped of context and reduced to a line item — can start to function like a label. I would hate for a vote on one issue to cause people to feel that a councilmember is “on one side or the other,” and therefore not really representing them. I would hate for anyone to feel we are not accessible to them.

There’s also something about how we work as a council. Once we vote, we speak with one voice — the voice of the council. That doesn’t erase differences, and I’m not suggesting it should. But it does mean the action taken is collective. If a report starts to read like a scorecard — names next to votes, week after week — it may unintentionally train people to engage with us as fixed representatives of a camp rather than as neighbors trying to solve complex, evolving problems together.

So I suggested a middle path: publish the numerical outcome of votes, without names. “Council supported this measure unanimously,” or “This was a challenging 4–3 vote.” That information matters. A unanimous vote signals alignment. A narrow vote signals difficulty, deliberation, and real disagreement. The numbers tell a story without immediately personalizing it.

Keeping that thin veil between the numbers and the people might, in some cases, help preserve connection. Publishing names might just as easily deepen division.

This is where I find myself thinking about John Rawls, the American political philosopher who introduced the “veil of ignorance” in A Theory of Justice as a way of designing fair systems without knowing one’s own position within them — not in a strict philosophical sense, but in a way that feels relevant here.

That idea is usually about designing society without knowing where you personally will land in it. That’s not what we were doing. We weren’t designing society; we were deciding how to communicate decisions already made.

Still, the metaphor resonates for me. Sometimes a small, intentional veil can reduce the instinct to personalize and polarize. It can help people stay with the substance of an issue rather than immediately sorting the humans involved into categories. Not a thick veil. Not secrecy. Just enough to keep the focus where it belongs.

Importantly, the information would still be there. Anyone who wants to know how I voted can still find it. Nothing is hidden. The question is whether our summary should foreground individual names next to votes, or whether it should focus on outcomes and point those who want more detail back to the full meeting, where context lives.

Because context matters. A simple “yes” or “no” next to a name can mean very different things depending on the question. A vote against something can just as easily mean “not this version,” “not this timing,” or “I’m worried about unintended consequences.” A procedural vote — whether to advance a draft or bring something back — can get mistaken for a final position. Even in calm times, this happens. In polarized times, it happens faster.

When I finished, the Mayor acknowledged the perspective and emphasized that the meetings remain public and the recordings remain available. Anyone who wants to know how a specific councilmember voted can watch the meeting and see not just the vote, but the discussion that led to it. She then asked the council whether we were comfortable, for now, moving forward with publishing vote outcomes by numbers rather than by name. Council agreed.

It felt strange to voice something that felt slightly contrarian — even contrarian to my own instincts — and then see it accepted as our current approach. And it’s important to say this wasn’t about me persuading anyone. The City Administrator brought forward a good idea for improving communication. The Mayor facilitated the conversation thoughtfully. Other councilmembers raised valid points, including the idea that we could try full attribution and adjust later if needed. This was the council working through something together.

But sitting with it in the days and weeks since, it continues to feel right — at least for now, and at least in the context of a written summary report.

Sometimes hearing someone’s position on something creates division. And that position can be based on misunderstanding — either in your mind or theirs. That doesn’t mean the answer is less truth. It may mean more discernment in how truth is shared.

So it’s possible that this thin little veil — keeping the substance public while softening the personalization — will do more to protect the community than having everything out in everyone’s face at all times. The information remains accessible. Accountability remains intact. But the invitation stays open to see one another as neighbors doing difficult work together, rather than as avatars of a side.

And in a time when political division feels easy — and connection feels harder — maybe that veil is worth keeping.

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