Local Government

[Songbird]

I ran for one of two open seats on the local Select Board -- 7-person governing body.

Got 489 votes but finished 6th out of 8. Difficult process, difficult 6 weeks of campaigning. It consumes every part of you and exposes you in ways you're not always comfortable with.

Top vote-getter (819) is a good guy and I have no problem with him winning. Forward thinker.

The other guy is a puppet.

Has anyone run for local government?

 

[trifectarich]

I applaud you for being involved. Since I moved about 18 months ago, I'm a regular at the city council meetings and often there are only two or three people who show up (in a city of about 9,000) to listen and see what's going on. At just about every meeting I'll get up and speak when it comes time for public comments, and if I've accomplished anything, it's that members of city council know they're going to have to listen to my bitching when I think they're spending money a little too loosely. A couple of neighbors want me to run for a seat this fall; not sure if I'll do it.

 

[I Should Coco]

Trifecta, is a local reporter among the two or three people at the meetings? In today's media world, I'm guessing no.

When I started in this biz, we staffed all the government meetings in the good ol' media watchdog role. Even when nothing interesting was on the agenda, my editor would say, "Coco, you're the eyes and ears of the public. You go to those meetings on behalf of our readers."

That was more than 20 years ago. Today, the handful of reporters in our bare-bones shop literally don't know where city hall is. It's a phone number and set of extensions/email addresses to them.

Good for you, Xan and Trifecta, for getting involved.

 

[trifectarich]

No, I've never seen a newspaper or TV reporter at a meeting. I can somewhat understand local TV giving the cold shoulder to these meetings; 98 times out of 100 you'd be hard pressed to find something that merits a report on the evening news. But the two local newspapers in the county and the big daily metro? There's no excuse for not being able to find a stringer capable of sending in 6-8 inches.

 

[sostartled]

I also applaud you for getting involved. When I was in the business a decade ago, the four local papers had someone at almost every meeting. The towns weren't that exciting, so selectmen, planning board, and school board was how we filled our columns. I've had an itch ever since I stopped reporting, but I moved away and now live in an area where it'd be very difficult to get involved (major metropolitan with a confusing governing structure).

 

[User 1019]

Army regulations do not allow ... obviously.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Anyone who gets involved in local politics and government deserves the utmost praise. Some of my friends are extremely wired in town government either as officials or ex-officials who know everybody and what's what. This allows lazy me to just call them up or meet them socially at parties and such and learn what's happening and what to do. But that option's not open to many.
PS: Local weekly does an adequate job of coverage of government. Used to be better, but then Gatehouse bought it.

 

[Webster]

I am debating running for my town council this year. A good friend was on the council and he has tried to get me to run in my ward. Unfortunately, no Democrat has won from my ward this century and I would have almost no chance to win.

 

[Songbird]

8 people ran for 2 open seats -- one of the largest fields ever -- and 7 of them were connected in one form or another to the "12 Tribes of Bennington" so the odds were stacked heavily against me as an outsider even though my footprint here goes back to 1987. I worked for the paper in the '90s as well.

Mine was a Bedford Falls campaign: winning hearts and minds by knocking on doors in every neighborhood and listening to the people. None of the other 7 candidates engaged the electorate the way I did though it may have been my undoing because I didn't have any power brokers on my team outside of my advisor. That said, I got to know this town well the last 6 weeks.

Big piece of me thought I'd win a seat despite the odds and naysayers. It's a shame that the second-place vote getter retained his seat. A crying ****ing shame on so many levels. Still trying to wrap my head around it.

 

[murphyc]

Good for you, Songbird.
Personally, I wouldn't want to run for local government. I've spent enough of my life at meetings covering them, so I don't have the desire to be at the meetings to be covered. When I've asked councilors over the years about it, they've told me it takes them about 15 hours a week getting prepared for a meeting. In all the cities I've covered councils in, serving has been an unpaid situation. At least when I cover a meeting I am (supposedly) getting paid to sit there. After so many nights away from home covering meetings, I would have a hard time justifying spending those same nights away from home doing something I'm not getting compensated for. I've also seen how councils can sometimes not work together too smoothly or force a vote to go a certain way. In other words, I've seen how the sausage gets made and I want no part in it.
At my last gig, I went to my first council meeting (city of 60K) and all three local TV stations were there, plus a reporter and photographer from the local daily. I thought I was in the big leagues, at least compared to previous councils I'd covered elsewhere. I asked one of the TV reporters if she attended many of the meetings. She told me she made it to a majority of them. You can probably guess how many additional times I saw her or any other TV person there. Only other time I recall seeing TV there in four years was when there was a debate about a Planned Parenthood building.

 

[Moderator1]

I am debating running for my town council this year. A good friend was on the council and he has tried to get me to run in my ward. Unfortunately, no Democrat has won from my ward this century and I would have almost no chance to win.

Thirty years ago now (jeez, time flies), a good friend ran for Commonwealth's Attorney in a small Virginia town. He was a Democrat in a heavy Republican area going against a long-time incumbent who either ran unopposed or steamrolled his opposition. My pal worked his ass off and was able to get the town to see this guy had been on cruise control for years. He won with 60 percent of the vote and served 16 years.

It can be done.

 

[Webster]

Thirty years ago now (jeez, time flies), a good friend ran for Commonwealth's Attorney in a small Virginia town. He was a Democrat in a heavy Republican area going against a long-time incumbent who either ran unopposed or steamrolled his opposition. My pal worked his ass off and was able to get the town to see this guy had been on cruise control for years. He won with 60 percent of the vote and served 16 years.

It can be done.

I hear you. Part of me really wants to do it and part of me is worried that I don't have the proper time to devote to the job. I also am not a great glad hander and in a ward of 6,000 people it is all about retail politics.

Mrs. W, who works from home, is just as smart and is way, way nicer than me, is considering running if I don't.

 

[Starman]

Thirty years ago now (jeez, time flies), a good friend ran for Commonwealth's Attorney in a small Virginia town. He was a Democrat in a heavy Republican area going against a long-time incumbent who either ran unopposed or steamrolled his opposition. My pal worked his ass off and was able to get the town to see this guy had been on cruise control for years. He won with 60 percent of the vote and served 16 years.

It can be done.

Plus, once you're in, if you have any aspirations to higher office, you'll be The Man as far as party higher-ups are concerned -- especially if you can survive the first re-election campaign (when the bad guys will pull out all the stops to get rid of you).

 

[Andy Friedlander]

My daughter ran for city council when she turned 18. She's always been interested in local issues and had been a regular at council meetings (the local paper always has someone there, BTW). She actually wanted to run for mayor, but the election cycle didn't match up, so she ran for an at-large council seat (this is a city of 365,000) against a well-entrenched incumbent who is an attorney.

Originally, she wasn't even thinking about winning. She had one specific issue she wanted to raise in the campaign just to bring attention to it. Then she met with a friend of ours who had been elected to his town's school board and he told her if she went into the campaign like that, all she would get was ignored, and that she should be a serious candidate or not run at all.

My daughter took that to heart and jumped in with both feet. She hit all the candidate forums, went door-to-door and talked about all the issues. Eventually, she got a couple of mover/shaker types on her side and got some newspaper coverage, then all the area TV stations picked up on the teenager running for city council. She worked her butt off campaigning during the early voting period.

On election night, we had a get-together with her supporters at a local restaurant to follow the returns. When the polls closed at 7, they posted the early-voting returns on the city website. We were really worried that her total was going to be really embarrassing, like 2 percent or something. Instead, she was right at 41 percent from early voting. My first thought was, "Holy ****, she might actually win this thing." She didn't, but she wound up with right about 40 percent, and it sure felt like a victory.

It was an incredible experience for her. Soon after the election, she was appointed to a city advisory board (by her opponent, no less). She got to know all the council members and a lot of the city and county officials (many of whom wrote recommendation letters for college and scholarship applications). She is currently a college junior double majoring in economics and communications, with an eye on law school and was recently selected for an internship in Washington this summer. She's told me more than once that when she's finished school she's coming back to run for council again -- and this time, she says, she'll win.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

If you are still seeking to get involved Xan, inquire about serving on a board.
Planning Commission, Zoning, Utility, ... They don't pay but they are important things for cities, that are often undermanned and overlooked.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Damn it, Xan. You should have let SJ run your campaign. We'd have gotten you elected and/or indicted.

 

[Songbird]

There's always the next go-round when 3 seats open up. I'll win one of them, indictment or not!

 

[Inky_Wretch]

With crowd-sourcing SJ, there's no way you'll lose.

 

[da man]

There's always the next go-round when 3 seats open up. I'll win one of them, indictment or not!

Send me an absentee ballot -- I'll vote for you!