Sunday, February 10, 2008
The more exciting election is in May
Christian Trejbal
Recent columns
- The Black House won't restore itself
- When dogs attack goats, taxpayers pay
- Keeping e-mail private
- Protect your head in a moped crash
From the RoundTable blog
Virginia's unexpectedly prominent role in the presidential primaries has captured a lot of people's attention. The commonwealth rarely has an opportunity to help select the nominees of the two major political parties.
Residents of the New River Valley should bask in this rare moment of partisan political potency, but they should not forget that another important election is right around the corner.
On May 12, voters from Pulaski and Radford to Christiansburg and Blacksburg to Glen Lyn and Pembroke will choose town and city council members.
Well, they will vote, anyway. Whether they will have a choice remains to be seen.
Too often momentum and complacency drive local elections. Incumbents run for re-election, and no one challenges them.
People who care about their communities still have time to ensure the electoral excitement reaches even tiny Rich Creek in Giles County where the top vote-getter four years ago received 69 votes.
Last week I spoke with Montgomery County Registrar Randy Wertz about the upcoming local elections and how candidates can get on the ballot.
It isn't difficult. There are a few forms to fill out that people can pick up at their county election offices or download from the State Board of Elections Web site. Then they need only gather 125 signatures from registered voters who live in town.
Candidates must submit those signatures by March 4. That night, Wertz will hold a lonely vigil in the county offices until 7 p.m. waiting for last-minute filers.
He urges people not to wait until then, though. His office verifies signatures and always rejects some because the signer lives outside the town or is not a registered voter. If there are fewer than 125 valid ones, a candidate can go back out and gather more before the deadline.
Your thoughts
"We don't want anyone not to be on the ballot who wants to be on," Wertz said.
The only difference between the towns has to do with size. Virginia law inexplicably allows council candidates in towns with fewer than 25,000 residents to skip campaign finance reporting. Blacksburg candidates will disclose where their campaign funds come from. In smaller towns such as Christiansburg, they will not.
Special interests can buy the good will of council members. If the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce decides to fund certain Christiansburg candidates, voters will never know about it.
The lack of transparency aside, citizens must ask themselves if they are happy with their town governments. Surely some people think they could do a better job.
In Christiansburg and Blacksburg, for example, all of the incumbents plan to ask voters for another term.
Maybe residents do not like Christiansburg's decision to allow more residential development along congested Virginia 114. Maybe they think Blacksburg has handled the First & Main project poorly. Maybe they wish Narrows more strongly opposed the fly ash dump.
Or maybe they have done a great job and the public is satisfied. The only way to find out is by giving voters a choice.
No incumbent deserves a free pass. That goes doubly for appointed council members who have never faced voters. There is one each in Christiansburg and Blacksburg.
Council elections around here are like beauty contests, not head-to-head battles. All of the candidates run in one nonpartisan pool. Voters each choose three on the ballot -- or however many openings there are -- and the top three vote-getters win. That means just one candidate beyond the incumbents can make them all sweat and earn their re-election.
Would-be candidates worry about the time commitment, the work and the public exposure. Those are all legitimate concerns. Serving your community in elected office is hard, but it is fulfilling, too.
At the start of the month, Blacksburg had 14,564 registered voters -- most Virginia Tech students register elsewhere, if at all -- and Christiansburg had 13,101. If past elections are any indication, less than 25 percent of registered voters will turn out. Some recent years have seen less than 10 percent.
Such appalling nonchalance -- negligence, even -- allows a small part of the citizenry to set a town's course for everyone. One vote might not make a difference among the millions in a presidential race, but it can decide a council election.
The last day to register to vote in the May election is April 7.
The president and Congress make the big, sexy decisions that affect the nation. Town councils handle the things that affect people on a daily basis. They can shape traffic, police services, property taxes and more.
A good council can help create a joyous community. A bad one can leave a town floundering while the rest of the world moves forward.
Tuesday Feb. 12 will be more exciting, but Tuesday May 6 will be more important.
Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times based in the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg.
