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Thursday, October 17, 2013Coming Soon: The Long and Short of ItRoad repairs and the current batch of candidates, that is. We'll be having a busy two or three weeks here at the blog, starting right away. I've been working on some discussion of the "Count My Vote" initiative, but the earliest that will appear on our ballots in Utah will be November 2014, so that can wait. Meanwhile, a local election is less than three weeks away, with city council and mayoral candidates on the ballot in American Fork, along with a proposal to issue bonds for $20 million to jump-start road repairs. The first meet-the-candidates event is tonight at Shelley Elementary at 6:30 p.m.; the second (of two) is next Wednesday night at the same time, at the Senior Center downtown. I'll be there, and I'll be blogging. You can expect the usual one or two rather long blog posts shortly after each event. The City has been holding informational meetings about the bond issue proposal. I attended the second of four last evening. I once (er, twice) called the previous administration's misguided attempt to pass five bond issues in a single election, in the middle of a major economic downturn (at least, I hope we're that far past the middle), "amateur hour." This time it's quite different: a polished, professional effort to educate the voters about road repair and maintenance, the present circumstances, what is already being done, and what can be done. Two such events remain; details are at afcity.org. You should attend one, learn what you can, and ask all the questions you can compose. For my part, last evening, I had a very pleasant informative ten-minute conversation with the City's Street Superintendent, T. J. Warnick. I chatted with two members of the city council, listened to two others field questions from small groups, compared notes with City Administrator Craig Whitehead, exchanged greetings with several other City officers I know, met a couple of new ones, and in general marveled at the difference a few years makes. (Given what else was happening yesterday, I also noted the happy difference a healthy distance from Washington, DC, makes.) Before I entered the evening's venue, Legacy Elementary, I heard one city councilor patiently explaining to a heated senior couple that, no, disputing the opposition's supposed facts wasn't the same as calling this couple liars. For my part, when an opponent offered me a flier and told me about a web site (of which more later), I told her I had just read the entire web site earlier yesterday evening. She asked me what I thought. I'm not sure I'm proud of my response; it was candid, but it may have been unkind. I told her I found it to be full of half-truths, outright errors, bad logic, and flawed history. In my defense, I left some things unsaid. (More of this later.) To her credit, she was unflappable. She kindly thanked me for my thoughts, and I entered the school and found the meeting. Under the general heading of Too Much Information, I'm toying with the idea of making the upcoming blog posts on the road bond rather short -- say, 500-700 words instead of 2000-3000. We'll see how that goes. If you're counting, this post is already over 500 words. Copyright 2013 by David Rodeback. |
