Vote Councilors that will worry about fixing potholes!
Well it’s 2017 and sadly most voters believe this is a year when you aren’t required to fulfill your civic responsibility to vote. It’s an off year – right? Save for a small handful of special elections to fill vacancies in the Legislature, no one is running for anything until next year.
Wrong! Nothing could be further from the truth. On odd-numbered years in Massachusetts, cities and towns hold municipal elections. The elections in communities governed by town meeting and selectmen already held their elections sometime last spring. City elections will take place this fall. As is the case with state and federal elections, these campaigns culminate on the first Tuesday in November. This year it’s November 7th.
The purest and most beautiful manifestation of republican self-rule or our representative democracy is expressed in municipal government. Think this through. The decisions made in city and town halls affect our daily lives at least as much, if not more, than the pronouncements handed down from Beacon Hill or the D.C. beltway. The roads we drive on, the traffic we deal with, our trash collection, most immediate public safety issues, and our schools are all administered for the most part at the local level.
Participation in these local processes is a right, a duty, and indeed a privilege. A
privilege because this local control, which we take for granted, is unique to our American republic. The founders in their wisdom understood that for a people to be free, they must govern themselves. To do that effectively, authority and power need to be localized. They gave the states more authority than the federal government, and by extension counties and municipalities retain the responsibility of administrating matters that pertain most intimately to our daily lives. Thus, the power of the federal government was limited to only those things that involve matters that cross state lines and matters of foreign policy, national security, immigration, and foreign trade. States were granted plenary policing powers, the right to primarily establish social policy, the ability to legislate on matters that cross municipal lines and to regulate commerce within state lines. Finally, the supervision, organization, direction, and management of those public services that so directly impact our quality of life on a daily basis were left to the people themselves, to administer through the people they know best: their fellow townspeople, their friends and their neighbors whom they entrust with elected office to serve the needs of the community.
Tragically, too many citizens can’t name one of their city councilors, perhaps not even their mayor. Possibly the only time they bother to find out who their councilors are, is when there is problem. Even more tragically, the turnout for these local elections is abysmal.
Therefore, far too often decisions are made by agenda-driven, radical leftwing activists. Conversely, many if not most mainstream commonsense voters who better reflect the will of the electorate sit out municipal elections.
Under the banner of “Think Global – Act Local,” cacophonous minorities of hardcore agitators have taken over what should be non-partisan local governments. They abuse municipal government’s purpose to promote a diabolical docket of diehard dictates, which have virtually nothing to do with delivering quality public services efficiently without breaking the taxpayers’ bank account. Rather than addressing parking and potholes, this “enlightened” political gentry wastes taxpayers’ time and money, re-litigating Supreme Court Cases, re-writing foreign policy and federal immigration policy, passing resolutions about impeachment, debating nuclear disarmament, passing resolutions demanding Norway grant spotted reindeer suffrage, and just about anything but fixing the damn potholes!
They love to use the guise of a superfluity of issues to hide their true agenda. The most common veneer these days is the environment or so-called Anthropogenic Global Climate Change. There are not enough column inches available to get into the details on this particular. If you have not read up on Agenda 21 and the truly nefarious intent behind it, I can’t urge you enough to do so.
Of course, the latest fad amongst these Ivory Tower elitists is to use city and town
governments as part of the “resistance” or the elected political wing of the so-called
“Antifa.”
These magistrates of multi-culturalism feign humanitarian motives to pass or promote Sanctuary City ordinances. They don’t care that such ordinances endanger the public, burden the taxpayer, and violate federal law. But let there be no mistake. They aren’t motivated by their twisted notion of social justice. These ordinances, resolutions, or proclamations are purely meant to make a partisan statement against President Donald Trump.
They can’t cope with the fact that they lost an election and that the states, charged by the Constitution with electing the president through the Electoral College, rejected their radical and failed socialist agenda. Were this not the case, these same lawless local legislators would have been scrambling to pass such sanctuary ordinances during the Obama administration, which according to government data deported more illegal immigrants than any prior president. Garnering him the title of “Deporter in Chief” by several pro-illegal immigration/open borders advocacy groups.
So what is our recourse? It is as simple as performing our civic duty. Between now
and November 7th, find out who the commonsense candidates are that running for Watertown Town Council, School Committee, and Library Trustee, — – then get out and vote for them. It’s going to take some work on our part. You need to ask tough and direct questions of the politicos to see if they are running to be partisan prelates of pluralism, or are they running to govern Watertown.
It’s high time we end this devilish reign of the Demi-gods of Diversity.
On November 7th… Elect municipal governments that fix the damn potholes.
John DiMascio
Copeland St.
As Mr. DiMascio correctly points out, the decisions of our local elected leaders will affect our lives as much as those of our representatives on Beacon and Capitol Hills, if not more so. That’s precisely why I plan to vote for local representatives that best reflect my views on ALL the issues that affect our community. Those include fixing potholes and renovating schools as well as ensuring that Watertown’s institutions reflect our diverse community, securing the safety of all our neighbors, and mitigating our collective impact on the climate and the environment. I will cast my votes in accordance with my values, because that is what we do in a democracy. Having talked to hundreds of Watertown voters over the past few months, I have no doubt that they will do the same.
Thank you D. Pritchard, couldn’t agree more; it is a privilege to vote and to be able to vote our values. I see it as a short-sided approach to ONLY think of Watertown, as we are part of the bigger collective…”One Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL”.
John’s epic babbling is bad enough without all the stupid alliteration.
More conspiracy theory nonsense from Mr. DiMascio. I am proud of many of Watertown’s efforts to “think globally, act locally”, especially the ban on plastic bags. We may only be four square miles, but we are helping to fix a global problem. Yes, the TC should be concerned with fixing potholes, but they should also be concerned with being good citizens in the global neighborhood.
I love these satire columns.