Who will best serve on local councils, committees?
We’re fascinated by how parties are so ingrained in municipal elections. We guess officials have to start their political careers somewhere.
There are City Council and Township Committee seats up for election next week and the party affiliations appear to be playing an overt part in most of them.
Ocean City is an exception with the First Ward election; it is a non-partisan town. (That’s a misnomer as plenty of voters and elected officials are quite partisan, but people don’t run for City Council or the mayor’s job based on their party affiliation. Well, at least not officially.)
We see party affiliations hard at work in Somers Point, Northfield and Upper Township, among others. We understand how those affiliations can shape philosophies about governing; we don’t want to discount that.
We do wonder if the partisan fervor that has swept the country in national politics – and doesn’t seem to be doing our democracy any favors – is truly important on the local level.
When we get to the heart of the matter, we want to elect mayors and council and committee members based on how well they will serve the interests of the community. Most of those interests aren’t partisan:
– How to handle infrastructure, such as what roads get repaired;
– How and when to buy new equipment for public works, police and fire departments;
– How to provide public services, senior and youth activities;
– How to manage budgets keep taxes as low as possible.
– How to support economic development.
Communities where there are contested seats are fortunate to have choice – especially in a place such as Upper Township with nine candidates split across three slates and one solo office-seeker. In Linwood, there are four seats up for election and all the candidate are unopposed.
Just as we editorialized about school board candidates a week ago, we hope voters take the time to learn about their municipal candidates. We also believe they should not put party affiliation at the top of their lists, but instead vote based on who they believe will serve them best with the mundane but important tasks of running the municipalities. Communities are best served when there is vibrant debate and discussion over issues large and small; that doesn’t always work when all elected officials walk in lock-step.
We urge people to go to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 2, or make sure they return their absentee ballots even though this is an off-year, non-presidential election cycle with no federal offices up for grabs.
We are not discounting the fact there is a race for governor and for our First District and Second District state Senate and Assembly candidates. They can affect our lives here in New Jersey.
However, where there are local choices on the ballot this year, whom we elect can have a direct impact on what happens in our communities.
