We have important municipal elections coming up for School Board, Mayor and City Council. Several of our fellow citizens have offered themselves for consideration. We owe it to them, and to ourselves, to learn what they stand for and what they hope to accomplish and to then vote for the candidates of our choice in the upcoming elections.
The candidates owe us something too. They owe us not only an explanation of where they think the current office holders have got it wrong but to tell us their vision for the future. Some candidates for the School Board are running solely on an anti-mask platform. The fly in the buttermilk is school will be over before the election and by time fall rolls around masks won’t be a problem any more.
The bigger issue for the School Board is e-learning. Because of the pandemic we’ve had a year of e-learning all across our nation and with nearly universal results– kids don’t learn much of anything when they teach themselves on-line. So why is the Mitchell School District so enamored with e-learning and so gung ho going forward with a program that is clearly harmful to the core purpose of educating students? In addition, when I started teaching in Mitchell in the early 1980’s there was very little turnover on the staff. Now there is considerable churn on an annual basis in personnel – why? Consider this, the high school was built in 1962 and the MCTEA building across the street that houses Second Chance (the old Mitchell Tech) was erected in 1968. Nothing lasts forever, so what is the plan for a new high school? These questions and others are the issues that candidates for the School Board should be addressing rather than litigating old arguments about masks.
The races for Mayor and City Council revolve around visions for the City. It’s no use crying about the installation of sidewalks. No matter who is elected the City is going to comply with federal statutes, specifically the American with Disabilities Act, and continue to install and improve sidewalks all around the city. It’s the law and city leaders simply have no choice. They don’t want to incur fines, forced installation of sidewalk by federal decree or lose grant funds. Neighborhood issues, like that of Lake Mitchell, beg for resolution and anyone elected will have to deal with them one way or another. If you don’t like the Council’s current approach to these and other issues – fine – what’s yours, recognizing you have to obey the law while being responsive to citizens and responsible to taxpayers?
Father Time, Amazon and the Internet generally are strangling our City. Our Main Street is a hundred plus years old and that presents unique challenges and opportunities. City and Chamber leaders need to find ways to attract, support and fill our empty storefronts with businesses. That may mean a return to the 1950’s Main Street style with more professional offices downtown. That may mean turning an empty storefront into a parking lot for the convenience of patrons as well as downtown apartment dwellers.
The maintenance and upgrading of the Corn Palace is a must. The more out-of-town money we can bring to Mitchell the more commerce it means for local business, more revenue for the City and the less need to tax residents for services or programs. Tourism could also be expanded by closer coordination with entities like the Dakota Discovery Museum and the Prehistoric Indian Village. There could be QR codes placed at participating businesses and attractions that could impart information and trivia. Visitation passports could be made available to tourists at the Corn Palace to be stamped or validated around town and perhaps redeemed for a small Corn Palace token upon their completion and return. Statues of Cornelius (similar to the one across the street from the Corn Palace but smaller and painted in different ways – as a cowboy etc.) could be located around town to give people more to do and look at, keeping tourists here longer and spending more.
Criticism and conflict are a part of politics but effective government requires more than that. Effective government requires hard work, a positive program, listening and willingness to compromise. Learn about the candidates and their positions and then do yourself, your children, your neighbors and this community a favor and vote for the candidates of your choice on June 8th.