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?Let the election begin!
?We’ve heard a bit of grousing over the last couple of weeks about former mayor Gerri-Lynn O’Connor announcing to the Cosmos that she’ll be coming out of her brief retirement in November of 2010 to run for Township Council once again. Too soon, you say, too soon.
Exactly what she’ll be running for is uncertain; she said it will depend on Howie Herrema’s decision -whichever of Mayor or Regional Councillor he opts to contest, she’ll throw her hat in for the other.
But what is certain is that the 2010 municipal election campaign has begun, like it or not. And we like it.
Why do we like it, even though the actual election is still 18 months away? Not long ago, that would have been half the term of office.
We like it because municipal government is the level which has the most immediate and visible impact on the taxpayer, and is also by far the easiest level at which the ordinary citizen can become meaningfully involved, by running for office.
Particularly in a rural and small urban community like ours, the investment in money to run for Township Council, and the investment in time should you succeed, is not overly onerous. If you run for one of the five ward councillor positions, you can probably get away with a campaign budget of $2-3,000, and that’s if you ran a decent-sized ad in both newspapers for six weeks before the election, had a few well-placed signs done up, and printed a simple leaflet to hand out as you go door-to-door. You don’t have to really convince a lot of people to vote for you to get a seat on Council; in 2006, none of the five winners had as many as a thousand votes, and one of them had less than 400.
But as intimate as the process is, it still takes a lot of thought and preparation to be successful. And if you’re thinking about throwing your hat in, you should definitely know what you’re in for.
In the final analysis, the field of candidates in 2006 was a pretty good one. But in our opinion, too many of the candidates made up their minds in the last couple of weeks, and virtually threw their money away by being unprepared. And although many of them said after being defeated on election night that they would try again, and stay informed and involved in the meantime, we have only seen a paltry two of those 19 defeated candidates - just two - attend more than a couple of council meetings in the two and a half years since. Those two - mayoral candidate Anne Holmes and Ward 3 candidate Tara McCullough - have not always been warmly greeted at meetings, but we give them a great deal of credit for staying concerned and informed. As for the rest, we’re disappointed that their interest in municipal politics seems to have been fleeting. If any of them are thinking about running again in 2010, we expect them to re-surface at council meetings very soon.
And if you, gentle reader, are having similar thoughts, that you’d like to try your hand at running for municipal office, we suggest two things: first, that you start at the ward level before tackling mayor or regional councillor; second, that before you announce your candidacy, you educate yourself about the job. Start now and attend a few council and committee meetings, find out how the whole thing works.
Otherwise, your candidacy will be a token effort. It will be very clear on the doorstep or in an election forum that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.
So that’s why we think Ms. O’Connor’s announcement is timely indeed. Even if no other candidates put their names forward in the immediate future, she has started the cogs turning. And if John or Jane Doe is contemplating a try for municipal office, 18 months of preparation is not a moment too soon.
