When the nomination period for the upcoming municipal election closed last Friday afternoon, there were certainly some surprises, even for a municipal reporter.
The fact that so many races will be lightly, or completely uncontested can’t have been expected. After all, how often do you hear complaints about how terrible this (and any, for that matter) council is at what they do? About how they misspend all of our tax money and are out of touch with the regular folks?
And yet, here we are.
But I digress. What I really want to talk about in this space this time around is what I’m looking forward to (hopefully) hearing from the candidates in this election – and not just the ones running for council.
I’ll start with them, though.
I would very much like to hear their thoughts on what the city’s role is in addressing the housing situation. Vacancy rates have created a market where rents skyrocket out of control because of the increased demand. This rising cost, alongside the rising cost of seemingly everything in our world, is far outpacing the pay increases being given by businesses to their employees, and that is simply not sustainable.
And no, building new subdivisions full of $400,000+ houses isn’t an answer.
From those choosing to run for our local boards of education, I am eager to hear why.
Why do they want to be involved with the public education system at an administrative level? What, exactly, do they want to see change?
I’ve seen a ton of change happen in education over the years – most of which I would consider positive. I am extremely interested to hear some concrete things from the candidates for trustee about what they don’t like about the way things are currently done and what they think they can do to change those things.
For that matter, I want to hear the same thing from the candidates for council.
I don’t want to hear, “I believe strongly in (vague concept),” or, “I think the city needs change,” or, “we all need to work collaboratively.”
I want to hear actual, concrete positions on what they feel will make our community a better place and how they intend to make it happen.