Sunday blog: Election ramblings….
Commentary by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Post-election thoughts. Forgive the rambling…
School board election
Tracy “Cueball” McCue
As of this writing, 10 votes separate challenger Deanna Garver winning over Jackie Glasgow, an incumbent in Wellington school board election at large position with 22 provisional votes still to be counted. The provisional count on Monday, Nov. 18 will be huge for the future direction of the Wellington school district (yes, your vote counts).
This school board election was all about Redesign and the Summit curriculum platform. Many people may have not considered this issue when voting, but the candidates’ opposing philosophy made this the clear-cut voting issue. Glasgow has been a supporter of the computer-based curriculum with the blessing of the Wellington school administration. Garver clearly is not and ran on the platform of getting rid of the curriculum.
What makes this vote so intriguing is it tips the balance of power in the school board. Up to this point, the board has been almost uniformly in support of the curriculum and what the school administration is doing. Only board member Pat Zeka has expressed doubt. Now with the election of Tom Henning, the possible election of Garver, and the reelection of Zeka, one could safely say that Summit advocates and the school administrators are suddenly without their strongest allies in power. Glasgow, Angie Ratcliff and the outgoing Jackie Berryman were clearly in the Summit camp.
That now leaves what looks to be a 3-3 split, (if the Garver vote stands). Incumbents Larry Mangan, Jason Newberry, and Carol Hadorn, if they are consistent with their views in the past, will be in favor of maintaining the curriculum and tweaking certain aspects of it as it moves forward. I fully anticipate Henning and Garver with Zeka in tow looking to go in a completely different direction.
That puts the onus on new member Chris Buckman, who stated in the Sumner Newscow forum (see here)
“With me being on the outside looking in, I would give Summit one more year to let the new School Board evaluate what the overall feeling of Summit is.”
Essentially, Buckman could very well be the swing vote and decide everything. Welcome to the other side of local politics, Mr. Buckman. And you thought serving on the city council was political.
This should be an interesting 2020 at the school board administrative office. Will there be any popcorn available for us news reporters? This will be fun to watch.
———
City Council thoughts
I find Wellington City elections to be the most interesting of any other elections out there. The town changes its mind every two years. Sometimes the voters have a progressive streak. Then other times the voters have a cranky “no change” view of the world.
This isn’t by accident. City and school board elections are the last honest elections left where personalities and qualifications matter. Funny how that works when you don’t have “R”s and “D”s next to a candidates’ names.
Another interesting aspect with local elections is what drives people to the polls. I can safely say, people were most interested in the Wellington’s mayor race that saw Jim Valentine beat his challengers, Tom Henning, and Noah Rinehart. Google analytics showed that there were three times more readers viewing the mayor’s Sumner Newscow political forum than for any other race.
Here’s the thing. The mayor’s position is basically a ceremonial position and wields little power. The only time he/she votes is in case there is a tie on a council vote. Viewing the make-up of the upcoming council, I don’t see that happening very often.
Wellington mayor Shelley Hansel presided over one of the most divided councils in the history of the town during her first two years. Yet, and this is just a guesstimate on my part, Hansel cast maybe five votes during her four-year tenure.
But the mayor isn’t really about agenda voting. He/she is an ambassador of the community. He/she is the face of Wellington for the next four years. Think of the mayor as the director of the orchestra. The director never plays an instrument but moves the orchestra through the music. It will be interesting to see Valentine in the new Mayor’s capacity. I have no doubt that Mr. Valentine truly cares about Wellington, and will do what he thinks is best for the town.
The best advice I can give Valentine is, “don’t sweat the small stuff.” You are the mayor now.
———
Bad timing
Let’s just make this official. The Kansas legislature’s grand plan to move the school board/city elections from April to November to realign with state and national elections to increase voter turnout has been a colossal rip-roaring failure.
The overall turnout in Sumner County went from 18 to 21 percent from 2017 to 2019 only because smaller communities like Conway Springs were having special elections. For example, Conway Springs voted down a school bond question. Nothing gets voters off their recliners more than a threat of a tax increase.
Voter turnout in Wellington was down from the last mayor’s election four years ago, held in April.
I blame the new election season for the lack of candidates running. It used to be people filed for city council/school elections in late January and had the election in the first week of April with maybe a primary in-between. Now people file in June and have to wait until November to see if they will be reelected.
Holding the candidate registration deadline in June is ludicrous. Nobody is paying attention to politics in June. It’s getting hot. There’s the harvest. School’s out. People are on vacation.
Then the state of Kansas is asking those who register to wait six months for the outcome.
Hell, even the candidates running were lulled into such a state of complacency that they forgot the election was coming up. I put in an article a month before the November election, thinking maybe all the candidates had died and gone to heaven because it was so quiet. I got three requests for political ads in the next 24 hours. It was like “oh, yeah, it’s time for me to start campaigning.”
But, let’s get real. When the Nazis in Topeka decided to move these elections to November, they really weren’t worried about voter turnout. They wanted to politicize the local elections so they could eventually put the Rs and Ds beside the candidates’ names. That way then they can control the voting power of the local boards as they do everywhere else.
The local elections should be moved back to April. But politics always rule.
———
Election tweaks
Ok, the new Wellington “at-large” city election format introduced by local resident J.P. Buellesfeld has been fully in effect for six years, and you can start seeing some trends.
Overall, the system has gone well. Having candidates in at-large positions is a good adjustment for the times.
But there are a couple of tweaks I’d like to see.
We need to return to two-year terms instead of four-year terms we have now. It is simply too long for local city council elections. I have heard from a few people, who would make good council members, state they won’t run because four years is too long of a commitment. Conversely, I have witnessed council members run out of steam near the tail end of their four-year term. Kip Etter has lately had problems showing up to meetings, and Kelly Hawley and Hansel most certainly have had that look of fatigue.
I believe in term limits as far as Washington or Topeka is concerned. There it is a full-time job where special interests can easily get in your pocket and embolden a political figure for life.
But serving locally is strictly volunteer work, where you are donating your time on weeknights.
Plus, if you have good council/board members who likes serving, why shouldn’t they be allowed to serve as long as they so desire – especially when no one else wants to run?
The fact we had three council candidates running for three positions is problematic. The timing of the elections, the length of the council terms, and the elimination of term limits are things that could help alleviate that problem in the future.
Of course, there is this thing called apathy – which is the biggest problem of all.
There’s nothing you can do to legislate that.
