political blitz

[nosrednayduj]

We are having a local election soon. I just watched the candidates night thing for school committee. I also watched one a few days ago, but it was run by the sustainability committee, and they asked questions that were about "how do we get more recycling in the schools" rather than "how do we handle various difficult educational priority questions", so it was kind of dumb. This one was run by the League of Women Voters, and they generally do a pretty good job of picking questions. There are seven candidates for three positions. It was hard to keep track of what people were saying and which ones I liked better. I think I have a favorite and a least favorite, which narrows the field somewhat. I took some notes, and hopefully I will manage to organize them before I forget everything I heard.

Then, tomorrow, we start our annual town meeting process. I read the warrant yesterday. Direct democracy is very messy. It seems to me that we will need two nights at least to get through all of the articles. We have some loose cannons in town. If it takes three nights, then they postpone to the next week, so I won't miss any due to my California trip.

I forget why town meeting is scheduled before the local elections. There's some good reason. There's also a race for select board, but there's only one open seat, and only two candidates, and I've made up my mind on that one.