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Back to Work


 

Good morning, beautiful people. It has been oh, so therapeutic to talk to you about my life for the past few days. But now I think I should try to get back to work. 

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Elections. We haz ‘em. If you haven’t noticed, the magic alarm clock that indicates the next election cycle has sounded. People are “declaring.” There’s some preliminary info on that over at The Merriweather Post Blog, along with commentary if you are interested. 

So far I’m noticing candidates for County Executive, County Council, and State Delegate. Have I missed anything?

Here’s my question. How do you feel about these upcoming local elections? What are you looking for? What issues are the most important to you? 

Are there qualities of the public servants we have now that you truly value and you’d like to see more of? Are there things you really wanted out of the last election and they didn’t materialize? 

I will make an embarrassing confession here: one of the things I dearly wanted out of the last local go-round was for the different factions of the Democratic Party to make peace and work collaboratively with each other. What can I say? I’m a sap. 

The possibility exists that they could have come together in a group hug and committed to loving one another and then gone forward to govern terribly. I’m not sure my wish was a fair or realistic one. You work with the people you have. If that doesn’t work, you try again.

Many of my friends are extremely informed about local politics but I’d like to be clear that I’m asking these questions of anyone who is reading this piece. Think about it. Ask your friends. There’s no perspective to be gained by asking the ten people I know already. 

If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your opinions publicly, feel free to message me through the blog. 

There’s only two groups I’m not particularly interested in hearing from: people who don’t live here and people who are running. Of course everyone is valuable but you aren’t my target audience for this. Bear with me.

As always, if I get enough response I will write a follow-up piece. 

Before I go, one thing: The Doubletree on Twin Knolls has great breakfast coffee. They may have to kick me out. 


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