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The filing period opens next week for candidates to run for 14 local-governmental governing boards.
All grumblers, moaners, lamenters and objectors, now is your time to shine. And while every resident has the right to voice his or her concerns, anyone who doesn’t take a real interest in government forfeits the right to be taken seriously.
We’re talking about those late bloomers who:
n Don’t bother to go to meetings of the board when a disputed action is in its early stages and open to modification
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Didn’t vote in the last election
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Aren’t even registered to vote
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Have never and will never consider running for election themselves, always leaving leadership to others.
Sure, it’s easier to complain than to do something that makes a difference. But it also is quite easy in most cases to find out when a governing body meets and what’s on the agenda. Each agency is required to post agendas in advance and to send them to citizens who ask.
Registering and voting also is not too hard. Call 454-2060 or go to www.votescount.com/reg.htm. You can even vote by mail.
Our hope is that folks with a talent to speak out when it’s too late decide to commit to some preemptive election-time action come fall.
In Scotts Valley and San Lorenzo Valley, only a fraction of citizens are registered to vote, and just a little more than a third of those turned out for the June election. That means, of course, that important decisions are being made by roughly one-fourth of the citizenry.
If you were to ask nearly any member of the Scotts Valley City Council or your fire, water or school board, you’d find out that he or she is an ordinary person, just like you. The difference is that they have stepped up to the plate.
Between Monday, July 14, and Aug. 8, you could file to run for office. Then, you’d really have the opportunity to make a difference.
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