Politics: Local

So last year my husband and I bought a house.  And usually, I can ignore any elections in odd-number years, but 2 of the the 3 city council “at large” posts are on my local ballot.  So it’s time for:

Annual Election Coverage

Now, because I am just a hair paranoid, I won’t list candidate names.  And my city is new, so some of our local issues are as simple as “people figuring out how a city works.”  So of the 2 council-at-large seats up, one of them is the incumbent, facing no challengers (makes THAT vote pretty easy…)  The other seat is more fun:

Candidate #1 – The Man-Boy

So I don’t like this candidate and I will be voting against him.  Done.  I hate the tone on his website – he sounds smug and condescending and stupid.  He says things like “I won’t vote for the city to raise taxes” because he “believes in limited government” (our city does three things – it’s already frickin’ limited!)

Take your damn libertarian/anarchist stupidity into the wilds where you aren’t affecting other people. I live in a city of 35,000 people in 16 sq/mi – which if I’m doing the math right puts us at about 2,200 people/sq mile. We might need to have someone who will raise our taxes because it’s the right choice for the city. And you apparently don’t have the balls or the backbone or the brains to do that because you want to “protect the individual from the government” (the gov’t ain’t gonna rob my house or jack my car or shoot my dog or dump waste into my rivers or build a strip club at the end of my neighborhood…)

And then he has this human-trafficking thing that he’s against… and it just is weird. It’s just this like white-knight bullshit-feeling…. Like really? THIS is your issue for the city? There are *gasp with me* FOUR massage parlors which must be doing something other than massages! Did I mention that he sounds like a condescending worst-of-white-male asshat?

I don’t like anything he says. He makes my skin crawl with every heeby-jeeby that jocks in high school and frat boys in the college EVER illicited. I will vote against him – especially ’cause there are 2 other candidates I like a LOT more.

Candidate #2 – The Newcomer

Here’s the first candidate I like. He is the “newcomer” because he’s running against the incumbent and I couldn’t come up with a better title for him…

He isn’t exciting (which let’s be honest, is what I want).  He does kind of hint at the “limited government” thing but he talks about accountability and sustainability – I like these words. I like these words a lot.  He talks about the diversity of my city (maintaining & encouraging) – which I think is decently diverse but I like a candidate who makes it part of their platform.

He talks about encouraging “appropriate” growth in businesses – which is huge.  We have a traffic problem and one of the city’s mandates is zoning. I want someone who won’t let developers build higgly-piggly without considering the impact on already-bad-traffic-zones.

I like his picture & his announcement youtube video. He is this middle-ages black dude and wears a t-shirt & khakis. I know it’s a dumb reason, but he looks like someone I could have a beer with AND talks like an intelligent, thoughtful person…

Candidate #3 – The Incumbent

To anyone who knows me, they will shocked to hear – the incumbent stands a chance with me.  I like my city (hell, I bought a house in the city limits BECAUSE i like the city).  I like what they are trying to do and I think the current city council is already doing a good job.  She has served on the city council since it’s inception, has done a ton of gov’t training at the county and state level…. she knows what she’s doing. I haven’t been so awesome that I’ve gone to a council meeting… so she could be horrible on the council and I wouldn’t necessarily know.

So I have to go off her rhetoric.  She does get a point in her favor that I’m happy with the status quo….

Somewhat like C#2, she talks about “cost effective” and “customer service oriented” government.  But, and this is a pretty big BUT – she talks about our millage rate being zero, and promising to keep it there.  I actually don’t like that.

The older I’m getting the more this whole “zero taxes” thing pisses me off. If we decide to institute a police department or a parks & rec dept (because the county isn’t keeping up OUR parks…!) I would not object to raising my taxes.  Now, if she said, “I would never raise taxes without support of a ballot measure” I might roll my eyes but accept this.  I actually am very mad at politicians who say “I promise to NEVER raise taxes” because that means they aren’t willing to do everything, even risk their own re-election (though smart tax raises SHOULDN’T be a killer) to do right by me & mine.

Conclusion:

Well, I’m not sure how I’m going to vote.  Do I vote for the incumbent because I like her track-record or do I vote for the new guy who I like what he says?  I love that I have good choices!  Not so much the one bad choice who I will vote flip-a-coin for etiher of the other two instead of him!