Happy new year! I hope that everyone has been having a wonderful holiday season so far and I hope that 2013 is filled with happiness and fulfillment for all of you. Stay safe and warm today while you continue to enjoy yesterday's snow.
In my last post, I asked you for Christmas gifts. I'll continue that bold trend today and suggest three New Year's resolutions that I'd like each of you to consider as we kick off 2013.
First, some background...
Over the last several weeks I've read comments both online and offline that reflect a lot of public distrust of both elected officials and government staff (at the local, state and national level).
That's disappointing.
On a broad level, our democratic system only works if the public and the people who are either elected to represent the public or hired to support the public trust each other and work together for the benefit of the community.
I'd love to hear from all of you on this. Click the email link at the end of this post (or the Suggestion Box link if you want to send an anonymous comment) and let me know what you think elected folks and government staff can do to improve communication and build trust with the people they (we) work for (OK...besides avoiding a cliff we've known about for years).
Now, let's get to those resolutions.
From the perspective of a relative political rookie, here are three simple and positive actions that I believe all of us can take in the upcoming election season to help make sure that the people who are elected to represent us at the local, state and national levels have our best interests in mind.
I'm going to jump to conclusions here and take a guess that the majority of people who read this blog are already registered and involved. If that's the case, you can change this resolution to "encourage at least one other person to get registered". Democracy is a participation sport. The more people who play, the better the outcome. You can't play if you're not registered.
Resolution #2 - Get educated about the candidates who are running for office
Spend time reading about them and listening to them. If possible, discuss the issues with them and ask them to outline their hopes, dreams and plans for the future. Tell them what you'd like to see government do with the public and for the public. Don't let them get away with simply bashing their opponents. Rather, ask them to simply and clearly outline what positive actions they plan to take if elected.
Resolution #3 - Cast a vote on election day
Only about 500 people from District 2 of the Unified Government voted in the 2011 election. Granted, there wasn't a "sexy" or "hotly contested" race in the district, but that's a pretty low number (since there are about 20,000 people in the district). Not all of those 20,000 are of voting age, but I'm guessing that it's way more than 500. We all need to do our best to make sure that the people who represent us in government (whether at the local, state or national level) represent our interests. We can't do that by letting someone else cast the vote.
I remain convinced that we can accomplish great things in 2013 if we just keep talking to one another and work together for the common good.
I hope that all of you have a safe, happy, productive and prosperous new year!!
I hope that all of you have a safe, happy, productive and prosperous new year!!
