So...
Today was local election day in Illinois. I went to the polling place, which is down the road about two miles from our house, and thought "Oh, no" when I saw all the cars parked there. However, they must have all belonged to the poll workers and judges because I was the only voter there when I went in. Like in November, they had a touch screen voting machine on display, but it wasn't live. I dunno why they keep doing that. I prefer the way we normally vote, which is by marking a paper ballot that is optically scanned while you watch. The paper ballots are easily countable by human eyes if necessary, and are saved in case that should be necessary.
Anyway, the reason I'm writing about this: local spring elections are when they put weird propositions on the ballot here, and when you vote for school board members and that sort of thing. I'm not sure what the theory is, unless it's just to keep it away from all the hue and cry of national elections and their polarizing influence. Many of the offices voted in the spring are non-partisan, at least in so far as there are no party names on the ballot or after the candidate's name.
The sad thing about it was that I was supposed to vote for three different school boards, a fire and rescue commissioner, the public library board, and the community college board. I've never heard of any of the candidates, even though I tried to get information about them in advance. Worse yet, usually it would be "vote for no more than three" and there would be three names. Or maybe four. Sometimes just two. The library board was "vote for three" and had only one name.
On general principle, I don't vote in those situations. If I don't know anything about the candidates, I could be supporting Attila the Hun and Bozo the Clown, and I won't do it. This time, though, I was so irritated at the absence of candidates for the library board that I wrote myself in. Then I went to work and e-mailed everyone I knew who lived in my library district and urged them to do the same. It won't count, because I think you have to declare yourself in advance even as a write-in candidate, but it's a protest of sorts. This afternoon I heard from the director of the local library (not the one I work for, but the one that serves my home school district) and she invited me to propose myself formally for the position. Apparently the vacant seats will be filled by appointment. The existing board members will choose the replacements for the two who are leaving. So now I have to decide whether I really want to do this...
Other issues on the ballot: a bond issue to allow the county conservation district to purchase more open space to keep it from being developed. I cringe when I think of yet more taxes to support this, but I am horrified at how fast the sprawl of subdivisions is encroaching on the remaining woods and farmland here, so I voted yes.
And a very contentious proposal (actually two): one to allow the organization of a water authority board covering three counties, and a second one to fund that board to about a half million dollars the first year. Again, more taxes, though a half million spread over that large an area amounts to about a nickel per acre of land and $20 a year on the average home value here. Not a big bite. I had to vote yes on these too because I'm really worried about water, even within my own lifetime here. We are outside the Lake Michigan basin, so water for this area cannot legally be obtained from there. Most wells in the area draw either shallow surface water or "medium depth" (200-300 ft. or so) aquifers, which are gravel deposited by glaciers ten millennia ago. Our well here is 200 feet deep. Shallow wells were going dry summer before last when we had a long drought. Medium deep and deep wells continued to supply water, but that is not an inexhaustible resource either. Increasing population and development here is going to strain the water supply to its limits, especially as they continue to build suburban type subdivisions and fill them up with people who think it is their god-given right and responsibility to grow lawns and water them every day all summer so they can cut the grass twice a week and throw it away. What a total waste of a precious resource. The water authority would have control over high volume wells and any kind of water reservoirs, and could refuse to authorize them.
This has the developer fat cats running scared, so they spent more than a million dollars on slick campaign materials full of lies about how the water authority would put meters on people's wells and charge them for the water (not true, and not authorized by state law) or would be able to take people's land from them if they didn't obey arbitrary rules (not true either.) Between that and the older folks who are opposed to absolutely anything that costs money, it has been a fast and heated battle. I really have no idea whether this will pass. I have a suspicion it may succeed in one or two counties but not all three, or that the organization may be approved but the separate vote on funding the authority will fail. It's a mess either way.
And no, I'm not going to say a whole lot about the Virginia Tech incident other than that I refuse to believe that having more guns on hand would have made it any better. You had an unpredictable lunatic on the loose. It doesn't prove much either way, pro-guns or anti-guns, except that our culture and society pushes some people into insanity. Yes, it's a tragedy, and I feel bad for those who died and those who lost relatives or friends, but it can NOT be blamed on either the gun control faction or the trigger happy NRA types.
Anyway, the reason I'm writing about this: local spring elections are when they put weird propositions on the ballot here, and when you vote for school board members and that sort of thing. I'm not sure what the theory is, unless it's just to keep it away from all the hue and cry of national elections and their polarizing influence. Many of the offices voted in the spring are non-partisan, at least in so far as there are no party names on the ballot or after the candidate's name.
The sad thing about it was that I was supposed to vote for three different school boards, a fire and rescue commissioner, the public library board, and the community college board. I've never heard of any of the candidates, even though I tried to get information about them in advance. Worse yet, usually it would be "vote for no more than three" and there would be three names. Or maybe four. Sometimes just two. The library board was "vote for three" and had only one name.
On general principle, I don't vote in those situations. If I don't know anything about the candidates, I could be supporting Attila the Hun and Bozo the Clown, and I won't do it. This time, though, I was so irritated at the absence of candidates for the library board that I wrote myself in. Then I went to work and e-mailed everyone I knew who lived in my library district and urged them to do the same. It won't count, because I think you have to declare yourself in advance even as a write-in candidate, but it's a protest of sorts. This afternoon I heard from the director of the local library (not the one I work for, but the one that serves my home school district) and she invited me to propose myself formally for the position. Apparently the vacant seats will be filled by appointment. The existing board members will choose the replacements for the two who are leaving. So now I have to decide whether I really want to do this...
Other issues on the ballot: a bond issue to allow the county conservation district to purchase more open space to keep it from being developed. I cringe when I think of yet more taxes to support this, but I am horrified at how fast the sprawl of subdivisions is encroaching on the remaining woods and farmland here, so I voted yes.
And a very contentious proposal (actually two): one to allow the organization of a water authority board covering three counties, and a second one to fund that board to about a half million dollars the first year. Again, more taxes, though a half million spread over that large an area amounts to about a nickel per acre of land and $20 a year on the average home value here. Not a big bite. I had to vote yes on these too because I'm really worried about water, even within my own lifetime here. We are outside the Lake Michigan basin, so water for this area cannot legally be obtained from there. Most wells in the area draw either shallow surface water or "medium depth" (200-300 ft. or so) aquifers, which are gravel deposited by glaciers ten millennia ago. Our well here is 200 feet deep. Shallow wells were going dry summer before last when we had a long drought. Medium deep and deep wells continued to supply water, but that is not an inexhaustible resource either. Increasing population and development here is going to strain the water supply to its limits, especially as they continue to build suburban type subdivisions and fill them up with people who think it is their god-given right and responsibility to grow lawns and water them every day all summer so they can cut the grass twice a week and throw it away. What a total waste of a precious resource. The water authority would have control over high volume wells and any kind of water reservoirs, and could refuse to authorize them.
This has the developer fat cats running scared, so they spent more than a million dollars on slick campaign materials full of lies about how the water authority would put meters on people's wells and charge them for the water (not true, and not authorized by state law) or would be able to take people's land from them if they didn't obey arbitrary rules (not true either.) Between that and the older folks who are opposed to absolutely anything that costs money, it has been a fast and heated battle. I really have no idea whether this will pass. I have a suspicion it may succeed in one or two counties but not all three, or that the organization may be approved but the separate vote on funding the authority will fail. It's a mess either way.
And no, I'm not going to say a whole lot about the Virginia Tech incident other than that I refuse to believe that having more guns on hand would have made it any better. You had an unpredictable lunatic on the loose. It doesn't prove much either way, pro-guns or anti-guns, except that our culture and society pushes some people into insanity. Yes, it's a tragedy, and I feel bad for those who died and those who lost relatives or friends, but it can NOT be blamed on either the gun control faction or the trigger happy NRA types.