It will be a sad commentary on the prevailing mood of our citizens if fewer than 25 per cent of us show up to vote in the upcoming Oct. 24 general civic election.
Nowhere does democracy come through as clearly as it does on the local political level, yet somehow local citizens, who are being asked to cast ballots for local candidates - people they see and can talk with pretty well any day of the week - are reluctant to do so.
What causes us to come down with a severe case of apathy when it comes to voting in civic elections?
This is the one level of government where we clearly see our money, mostly from property taxes, being spent.
When we vote for our provincial and federal candidates, we do so with the knowledge that only a tiny portion of our locally raised tax dollars will ever find their way back to our community. That's not the case in civic governance where the vast majority of the locally raised dollars are spent locally by local administration.
So why do we avoid the opportunity?
There are plenty of issues; there are well-intentioned candidates, there are questions to be asked and answered, there certainly should be a passion among the electorate to make Estevan the best city in Saskatchewan and if not ... why are we here? So why aren't we interested in finding out how our candidates intend to help us reach that goal?
Beats us.
Too often the chronic complainers are the very people we have to nearly drag to the polling stations. That's just weird, but true. Once every four years these complainers have two opportunities to fix the problems they're always bringing to our attention. The first opportunity comes with the opportunity to declare themselves as a candidate ... preferably as a candidate with a solution or two.
Failing that, then they are invited to join the democratic process by taking a few minutes out of their not-so-busy lives to cast a ballot in favour of a team of people who have been willing to make themselves available as candidates and potential problem solvers.
We have plenty of issues surrounding the city of Estevan and regional authorities. We have issues regarding land supply that is controlled by the City, raw land costs, increasing housing costs, local government fees, senior government and local regulations that either add to or help remove problems. We have ongoing negotiations to undertake with the provincial government regarding road reconstruction, subdivision developments, security issues, traffic flows, facility renewals, expansion and business development requirements, property taxes, green spaces, water supplies, beautification needs and so on. Surely our citizens are interested in at least one or two of these topics.
Yet we fear that when the time comes to listen to our local candidates on Oct. 9 at a public forum, we'll sit back with arms folded across our collective chests, and assume a position of "don't know, don't care."
Even worse, we may not vote on Oct. 24. In fact, chances are three-quarters of us who are eligible to vote won't bother. But boy, will they hear from us ... later.
Too bad, so sad.
We hope we're wrong.
