Davis Islands Today

Less than 15% of you voted in the primaries back in August.  Reasons given include:

    * “nothing that [I] cared about…”

    * “no one candidate seemed any better… than any other…”

    * “school board and circuit court judges [don't] drum up any attention.”

    * “voters didn’t know who they were.”

    * “nothing but judges and school board seats…”

With the office of the President of the United States up for election, we expect turnout to be much greater than it was in the primary.  Yet that does not make the local races any less significant. 

Nothing about electing local leaders is thrilling.  But it is important.  These people we are electing are in charge of the day-to-day decisions surrounding your home, your job, the restaurants you frequent, and retail stores where you buy supplies, and more.  In addition, they have a direct effect on the parks you use, the roads you drive on, safety in your neighborhood, and on and on and on.

Even the School Board affects each of us, from the number of school busses that are on the road to the amount of your tax money being spent.  Not to mention quality of education given your employees, coworkers, friends, business partners, and the young girl taking your order at your favorite fast food joint.

Of course this stuff is not very glamorous or exciting.  But neither is shopping for a mortgage, or insurance, or a mechanic.  Neither is driving during rush hour.  Neither is going through the honey-do list.  Neither is preparing for a hurricane.  Yet those things are important enough that you should spend more time on it than you would like.  If you did a inadequate job at any of them, your quality of life would decline.  It’s called paying the rent.

But what if you did care?  If everyone were truly concerned about electing real leaders, I believe you would see a difference in the above-mentioned “circumstances.”

    * More qualified people would enter local races if they were respected for doing so, giving you better choices.

    * Better choices would lead to spirited discussions about their differences, making it a BIT more exciting.

    * Local newspapers and TV would be forced to better cover local races.

    * Leading to (hopefully) a bit less of an avalanche of information about the presidential race.

We encourage you to discuss the local races with your friends and family, and research any information you can find about the candidates, including all the local media sources. 

We’ll see you at the polls.

Tommy Duncan