The election is over, and the results are in. Turn out wasn’t very good, only 27% of the registered voters bothered to vote. “Great” turn out for an off year, municipal election is between 32-35%, which is still abysmal, so we weren’t that far off a “good” turn out, I guess. I don’t understand people who don’t register and vote on issues important to your community and your pocketbook. This time around it was lake property owned by the City and a school bond election, as well as choosing community leaders (School Board and City Council) that were on the ballot. Why wouldn’t you take an interest in your taxes, your children and community by voting?
Two of Mitchell’s four City Council seats were uncontested. Tim Goldammer ran unopposed for incumbent Steve Rice’s seat in Ward One after Mr. Rice decided not to seek reelection. John Doescher ran for reelection unopposed for that seat to continue serving as one of the two City Council members from Ward Two. There was a three-way race in Ward Three, which Mike Bathke won. It’s always good to see civic interest in local government. Finally, there was a dog fight in Ward Four where last-minute spending on campaign advertising barely put Susan Tjarks over the top by 29 votes thereby defeating her challenger, Don Everson. In other electoral news, Deb Everson defeated the incumbent for a seat on the School Board.
There are several lessons to be learned from these races. First, it is important to be civically engaged. Democracy cannot run on autopilot. There are important decisions to be made and they will be made regardless of the level of interest of citizens. If you want a voice, if you want to have a hand in the direction of things then you must be involved. That means voting at a minimum. I hope the 73% of the electorate that didn’t bother to vote realize they have relinquished any claim to complaining about the personnel and direction of the City and the School District. If you really want to have influence, then you have to put yourself out there and run. I know it hurts to lose. I’ve run in thirteen different elections for various offices at various levels and won eleven of them. I lost my first election and my last one. There is pain in losing but I would urge those unsuccessful candidates to dust themselves off – as Tim Goldammer did – and run again sometime in the future. Tim was unsuccessful in his first run for City Council but that attempt made him better known and paved the way, in part, for his uncontested run this time.
The second lesson is incumbency means nothing. It’s a “what have you done for me lately” kind of world we live in. No matter how long or well you’ve served, it is incumbent (ironic, isn’t it) on you to articulate your vision for the future and to defend your past record. Assuming people “know” you and how you stand on the issues is a recipe for forced retirement from office. Incumbents have to campaign. A successful candidate for office runs like it’s a life and death situation, which it is in a way. Noel Hamiel used to be the editor and later the publisher of the Daily Republic when I was in the Legislature. I would spend between $10,000-15,000 on my campaigns and win handily. He would chastise me for the expense and the “waste” of money, given my margin of victory. I had two responses for him. The first was to look at what the Daily Republic was charging me for advertising and realize their rates were part of the “problem”. Second, it is a chicken and the egg situation. Did I win so big because I spent so much money or in spite of it?
The third lesson is participation makes a difference. The citizens who got together to promote the bond issue and those who touted the lake issue were the difference in the election. The forums they participated in, the advertising they created and financed as well as the person-to-person communication they did all combined to make for winning margins on election day.
The fourth lesson is the campaign is just the beginning. One of my favorite movies is called “The Candidate” starring Robert Redford. He’s an underdog California Senate candidate with no hope of winning. Spoiler Alert – he wins and is told the good news by his campaign manager. Redford looks stunned and the last line of the movie is, “What do I do now?” For those who have won their elections it’s time to roll up their sleeves, work on the issues and suffer the slings and arrows of being in public office.
The lake issue passed by 56% of the vote. Frankly, I was surprised the margin was so low. The “park land” out at the lake isn’t enjoyed by anyone except the those who are its immediate neighbors and lake residents generally. While the sale of those lots won’t bring in a lot of money relative to the total cost of the lake’s restoration, it is better than nothing and a good use of an existing asset to create revenue. The low approval reflects more the chronic disinterest of citizens who don’t live around the lake in doing anything about the condition of the lake rather than any passionate interest in saving the “park land”. I know first-hand, from my door-to-door campaign for Mayor, how much citizens don’t care about the lake and how much they loathe spending any money on its clean up. I disagree with that “let the lake die” view, but the animosity to an assessment of taxes for the lake or diverting public money from other priorities to clean up the lake is very real. We saw some of that hostility expressed in Susan Tjarks’ near-death electoral experience in Ward Four and Mike Bathke’s election in Ward Three.
The margin in the bond issue shocked me. I predicted the bond issue would pass but I never expected an 82% approval. The thing that pushed folks into voting for the bond issue, in my opinion, was the necessity of running two high schools (the new one for academics and the old one for athletics) with all the attendant costs if the bond issue didn’t pass. I also think that Common Sense prevailed as voters realized that the athletic portion would have to come sometime and why wait until it was much more expensive to build at some future date.
The School Board dodged a bullet with the passage of the bond issue but there are other issues to be addressed, financial and otherwise, that will be a challenge. The City Council has big decisions to make about lake restoration, how to keep Main Street alive – both in terms of business vitality and because of aged buildings, what role the City should play in private enterprise (TIF districts as well as other tax incentives, continuing to provide services that could be done by private business and so forth), the Corn Palace – the building, the Plaza, the festival and shows etc.
I’m proud to be an American. Being an American comes with responsibilities as well as rights. I voted and I’m grateful to other folks who carried out their responsibilities. Having been a candidate, I know how lonely and expensive and potentially abusive a run for office can be. Thank you to those who ran and to citizens who voted and to all who are involved in our community in ways other than voting and running for office. A community thrives only when people actively care about it and step up to participate and make it work. My advice to those who won is this – be humble, listen and do your best. My recommendation to those who didn’t win is to learn from this experience, stay informed on the issues, remain committed to public service and to try again sometime in the future.
Mitchell won this election. Whenever citizens care enough to run for office while others care enough to get involved in issues or campaigns and people vote, the community wins. Thanks to all who participated, it’s what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they fought the Revolution and devised the Constitution.