EDITORIAL: Shoulder season, but not shoulder-shrugging season...Election 2011
By Rossland Telegraph
Our next round of municipal elections will be held–province-wide–on Saturday, November 19, 2011. That’s pretty much exactly a month from now–and we here at the Telegraph couldn’t be more excited.
We’re big believers in democracy here at the Rossland Telegraph. Believe it or not, the fomenting of democracy is precisely why we started this paper just over three years ago, right before, as a matter of fact, the last election. No, we didn’t do it for the money [laughs bitterly]. We view democracy as one part governance and one part keeping an eye on those doing the governancing, if you know what we mean.
So it’s a kind of a dance, when you think about it. And when you think about it that way, it becomes apparent that an election, to us, means a group of potential new dance partners.
In order to keep our dance card full, then, we’ll be offering extensive coverage of the election over the next four weeks. We’ll be interviewing candidates, allowing them to post their own material to the paper in our election section, and covering whatever debates and events take place between now and election day.
Over the next few days, candidates will be posting their pics and profile pieces to our special Election 2011 section. You’re free to use our commenting function to ask individual candidates questions–questions that we’ll do our best to encourage them to answer. We’ll also raise a few issue-related questions ourselves and invite candidates–and other interested citizens–to weigh in with their opinions. The Columbia rebuild? Tax rates? What makes an effective council? All these questions and more are bound to come up.
Our hope is that you, our readers, will join in the fun and games. We hope you’ll use the Telegraph to keep informed so that you can make educated decisions on November 19th. Some think of municipal politics as small potatoes, but we disagree strongly. We view local politics as the heart and soul of Canadian political life. The people who govern us at the local level make decisions that directly impact our lives AND they’re also regular folks just like us. In other words, they’re accountable–to local reporters and to being button-holed in Ferraro Foods.
To us, that’s democracy. Our very own Andrew Bennett had a tough choice to make recently–between working for one arm of democracy or the other. He made a choice that we’re happy with (though we’re very aware it was our gain and council’s loss).
We hope you’ll take the plunge this fall and help us continue the centuries-long conversation that is democracy.
