I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Post-Election Morning Hangover

Well, the nation election is one thing. But for our little burgh, we passed a new charter that will change our form of governance in two years. We're going from a weak mayor position to a village administrator, removing the water board, and reducing council to 5 from 7. Sure, it passed with 15 votes (4%), but it had everything going against it; fear of change, distrust of those proposing it, that an administrator “might not be one of us” (more than likely), and that the local elections board incorrectly listed the vote blocks as “for/against the levy.” So the good news is that in two years I expect to be out of a job (my seat is one of those being cut, as I expect one of the other two councilmen to run, and they consistently garner the most votes of any of us). Go us. Now the second half of the hard work begins.

We also didn't approve of a 1.55mils "Improvement" Levy for our new school (only 4 years old). This is the exact levy our school board said they would allow to expire since we approved the levy to build the new school (104 votes or 4.5%). I expect they'll float it again. They tried to do this one through stealth (absolutely no campaigning for the off year election). Next time might require actual campaigning against.

And while the state did some other things I disapproved of, we did finally pass a casino initiative. And hey, it only took a complete collapse of our economy and state revenues to do it. Unfortunately we had to do it through a Constitutional Amendment, but then our state constitution is weird that way.

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