The date is April 8.
Enter it into your Treo or BlackBerry. And do it now before your tweenager pesters you for a ride to the mall or an employee saunters into your office needing a decision about whatever.
April 8.
Type it into your desktop computer’s electronic calendar or scribble it on your old-fashioned planner.
For heaven’s sake, write it onto your forehead or your forearm, if need be. You know, like the Bible says to do about the rules for daily living.
April 8. That’s the date.
Do whatever it takes to remember it and honor it as holy as any secular day can be. It’s that important.
After all, it’s Election Day.
Admittedly, the spring election actually might not rank as high as, say, the Ten Commandments in importance, but as far as that date’s impact on the area’s future goes, it’s pretty significant.
Across the Sioux Falls region, voters will pick representatives for their respective city councils and school boards.
These public bodies arguably have as much of an impact on a local community as statewide and federal bodies. However, municipal elections typically draw lower voter turnouts than their state and federal counterparts.
Take, for example, this year’s state primary. South Dakota’s June 3 election includes not only contests for Republican and Democratic presidential nominees but also state legislative and county races. Given the turnouts that the presidential primary is fueling in other states, it’s safe to say there’ll be little worry whether South Dakotans will turn out at the polls this summer.
And certainly November’s contests will see exciting times.
But first, there’s April 8.
What makes this municipal election any more crucial than others, you might ask? That’s a fair question. After all, it does lack a mayoral contest.
Still Sioux Falls faces several protracted challenges ranging from funding for the Lewis & Clark pipeline to revisions of the flood plain map to how to build an events center.
Each of these issues affects individual residents and the business community as well as the city’s continued growth as a whole. And each requires wise, strong leadership from our local officials.
And then there’s an array of amendments to revise the city’s charter. Those are anal-rententive issues but necessary.
However, what really makes the coming election important is this: It’s an election. It’s that simple.
Regardless of who or what is on the ballot, voting remains the linchpin of our free society. The defense and exportation of this freedom are why we send daughters and sons, dads and moms to fight wars in faraway places.
But in the fight for freedom, there’s no greater weapon than a completed ballot.
That’s what makes voters’ apathy so tragic in this land of the free, especially during municipal elections.
Here’s the thing, though: We’ve got a real chance to change that. We’ve got April 8.
So write that date down. Etch it into your memory. Highlight it on your weekly to-do list.
Then, comrades, let’s vote.
|
