What did I miss, again?

R. Kloeppel
printed, Monmouth Daily Review Atlas today

Don’t quote me on this, but I hear there was an election, here in Illinois, this past Tuesday. And don’t tell anybody, but I didn’t actually vote in it, either. I seem to have missed it entirely. The buzz is, we held primaries this week, and, for some reason, scarcely anybody -- including some of the well-informed members of the college community -- knew who was running or what their platforms were.

I can’t say I blame our paper for its lack of coverage, when no other regional news media, be it television, radio, or internet, had anything useful to say regarding candidates or issues. I saw signs out in people’s yards again, and, from the lack of media coverage, one might have thought the signs were just left over from last November’s national elections. I wouldn’t have blamed people for leaving old campaign posters up -- wintry weather makes me reluctant to go outdoors and take down the remainder of my Christmas decorations, after all. But these signs didn’t say “Bush” or “Kerry” or “Obama” or “Keyes”, but rather, some guys running for -- of all things -- mayor of Monmouth. I wasn’t even sure we had that office, any more. Don’t most towns settle for City Managers, instead? Oh, of course, there are cities where mayors are appointed for life, and usually inherit the office from their fathers, as did Richie Daley, up in the Windy City. Most towns, however, don’t seem to need a political figurehead. It isn’t that important a job. Or so much of the news media would have us believe.

When you boil things down, though, the real power lies in the hands of the local government officials. Those idiots in Springfield and the bigger idiots in Washington, D.C. may pass all sorts of interesting policies, but the stuff that affects our lives seldom comes from those quarters. The individuals who change our lives sit in our city halls, passing zoning ordinances, approving business construction, establishing budgets, hiring and firing the staff who make our city and county run, and countless other thankless tasks. Our mayors and city council members aren’t just deciding whether grass should be trimmed to a precise, uniform height. Does Wal-Mart want to build on our lands? City Hall decides whether or not it will happen. Without the approval of a thousand City Halls, Wal-Mart would still be a single discount store in Arkansas. When City Hall gets cocky and starts demanding higher taxes on local industries, the industries leave for cheaper climes, either to just outside city limits or to foreign lands.

In other words, those guys can make or break a city, so it really does matter who is elected. And, it matters at the very beginning what our choices are. The primary elections are designed -- so they tell me -- to select the best of each party. Selecting the best, though, can be difficult, if you know nothing about the horses in this race. Somebody needs to make sure that all the data are available to everybody. In this, I think the party headquarters are as lax as any other source of information. Granted, printing up pamphlets and running advertisements in the regional media can be costly, but more costly is ignorance among the populace. When they don’t know you’re there, they won’t give you money. If you can’t afford the regular press, try what Howard Dean’s people did... sell your candidate on the internet. Setting up blogs and websites is cheap(some are even free). With the kinds of funds locals get, they should be able to pay for a posted link or two.

I’d actually like to see this humble newspaper provide a link from their website to solid research on candidates and on what’s happening daily or weekly at City Hall. That sort of stuff doesn’t usually merit front-page coverage, and certainly wouldn’t boost sales, but for those of us who are genuinely interested in keeping an eye on our local taxes, the paper could provide a huge service.

Even if the paper doesn’t provide such a link, the city itself could easily provide for a web page to post minutes from open meetings, announcements of changes in policy, and so forth. Monmouth is miles behind many other small communities in this.

Local government needs to operate for the local constituency. In order for this to work, the locals need access to the work that the government is doing. We need to know who is doing what, and with whom, in and around our government offices. The easier the access, the more potential input the constituents will have. This may remove some of the power a mayor or a council member might have, but, in the long run, it may very well also make the job easier -- partly because angry e-mail is easier to deal with than angry phone calls, but more because, when citizens feel they’re actively participating in their own government, they tend to be less resentful of (for example) changes in tax rates.

There would be the real “Power to the People”.