Rosenberg is professor by day, but 'Justice' by night

Author: Kelly Janis

Professor of Political Science David Rosenberg is not content living as a passive observer of politics. Even in the small town of Middlebury, Rosenberg has assumed a decidedly active role in the political sphere, serving for over thirty years as one of the town's 15 justices of the peace.

Among a justice of the peace's primary duties, the one which Rosenberg calls, "the most fun" is performing weddings and certifying marriages as an officiate. "I've done that a lot," he said, "and I love doing it." In fact, Rosenberg has married so many couples that he was able to tick off a lengthy list of his colleagues with neighboring offices in the Robert A. Jones '59 House who were married on his account.

"I've performed some wonderful weddings," he reflected warmly. The most memorable is one between two former students shortly after their graduation. "She was from Brooklyn, and he was from Shanghai. They had an interfaith wedding and marriage and household."

"For this couple, she was Jewish and he was sort of Chinese Buddhist, and his family came over from China, her family came up from New York City, and we had a wedding in three languages - English, Hebrew and Chinese through translation - under a tent. It was outside, and there was a lot of wind. A rain shower came howling through, which added a lot of drama as everybody huddled close together. But it all went off very smoothly and the sun broke out at the very end, and it made us all smile and shine," said Rosenberg.

Actually, many of the wedding ceremonies Rosenberg performs are interfaith marriages. Rosenberg explained, "There is not a priest or a rabbi or a minister in the state of Vermont or many other states who will perform interfaith weddings. Normally [couples] prefer [to wed] in their own churches, among their own congregates. You can convert, but a lot of folks don't, or don't want to. They may be spiritual, they may be religious, but they're not of the same faith. Nonetheless, they want to get married."

Justices of the peace are also charged with the bipartisan supervision of local elections. "We of course have a full-time professional town clerk who really does all the preparation and supervision work," Rosenberg said. "But we're the elected officials who make sure all goes well. And these days -especially after the 2000 presidential election - we don't take any of this for granted."

Naturally, the position carries in tow its share of challenges. Most notable among these challenges is the administration of the property tax. He explained that all property must be evaluated according to its "fair market value," the price for which it may be purchased for any personal or commercial purpose. This often poses a problem for families living on small farms. "Once upon a time, maybe the property tax made sense, when people owned and lived off their own land here," Rosenberg said. "But, nowadays, there are a lot of people who may own a lot of land, but they don't have much cash income. They're land rich and cash poor," he explained.

"So we might have an old farm family that only has one or two people left running a small farm, but it would make a great vacation home or motel or something else, so the property is reassessed upwards and becomes much more valuable."

The result is farmers being forced to subdivide their own land and sell it to developers. "That's a difficult thing to do," he admitted, "to figure out how you maintain some continuity of the community and not be completely commercialized in assessing property."

Given that matters of property tax are handled by the state legislature, justices of the peace do not have a hand in formulating the policies surrounding them. "But," he said, "we can communicate with [legislators] and we can bring to their notice specific issues that need some legislative instruction or clarification."

Ultimately, Rosenberg is heartened by the contributions which his position does, in fact, permit him to make. "I think it's important to take part in community life. This is an important way to take part in helping to keep your community alive," he said,."It's a wonderful community, so I receive an enormous benefit in doing this … I feel very much a part of this place, and want to make it a great place to live and work and shop and play."