If I told you that newly elected Cynthia Mickelson will make more important decisions about your life than president Trump will, you probably would just laugh, or at least scratch your head.
We will get to that in a minute.
On Tuesday, only 3.7% of the voting public showed up to elect a new school board candidate. Besides the fact that people are fed up with musical precincts and complete confusion when it comes to where we should vote, many people just don’t give a sh*t.
Oh, I have heard it from my friends, I have seen it in social media and people say it on call in talk radio, I didn’t vote in the school board election, because it really doesn’t matter.
Really? You are seriously misinformed.
I would make that argument for POTUS. Think about it. The electoral college picks our president. Just look at the last election, Clinton received the popular vote, but Trump was chosen (by law) by the EC. So why even vote for president? And better yet, how does the President’s decisions really effect my life, especially locally? Not much, unless he uses his veto stamp.
Now let’s look at the school board. Besides a large portion of my property taxes going towards the school district’s budget, I now have a ½ penny of sales taxes going towards them. The school board also juggles large federal grants and subsidies (my income taxes).
While our misguided state legislature implemented the sales tax increase, it is our school board that really decides how that goes towards teacher compensation. As for our property taxes, they will be making some major decisions on them over the next couple of years. Our super, Dr. Maher has already been beating the drum of new HS and possibly new middle school. They will have to make some critical decisions on how to pay for those new schools. They could pay the bonds out of the current budget, or they could choose to raise those taxes.
Even without children, like myself, the school board makes a lot of decisions that affect our local economy and federal aid. Take FREE and reduced lunches for instance. How does this affect other federal programs in our community?
This is why it concerned me that candidate Mickelson raised 9 times more than her opponents, and the financials were never put online for the public to view. She raised that money from the GOP establishment, prominent members of the Chamber of Commerce, Minnehaha County Commission, Sioux Falls city council (current and former members) banking industry, healthcare industry and development and homebuilder industries. They obviously seen how important this race was and how important it was to get their candidate elected, and they succeeded. Even with all the struggles I had with Mickelson as a candidate, I would give her a thumbs up on her get out the vote efforts.
Local elections matter. Please educate yourself and vote. The presidential election, not so much.
Well said. It’s the smallest, most local races where your vote matters most. It’s especially true in areas where most state and federal level races aren’t at all competitive.
3.7% of voters is not a choice. It looks like parents are to busy barely making a living working several jobs who don’t have time for issues or the scavenger hunt to find a polling place. POTUS election is rigged. This is organized criminal intent.
Now, let’s see a post about PGA coming to town. Somehow, Lewis starts with some facts that get developed from posts here. Let’s hear it.
Is this Southdacola or Associated Press for local media?
I agree, local governments affect out lives more.
I will say I’m increasing left awestruck how a change in leadership can change the direction of our city or our country considering we don’t elect monarchs and several checks and balances that should keep us more stable.
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Adams