There has been the election here or there that I have missed. But for the most part, I am a voter.
I like to read about the candidates and find out what their stand on the issues are (which might be one reason why we started the Luther Register!).
Currently I drive 15 miles one way, with ten miles on a dirt road, to our little polling place at the Meridian Volunteer Fire Department in Logan County. I was voter number five about mid-morning for the election to fill a vacant seat on the Luther School Board. Most of our neighbors complain about the drive and some use the absentee voter option to participate in our right to vote, but I am never on the ball enough to vote in advance. So sometime on a Tuesday election day, I’ll be making the 30-mile trip. If it works out, I like to slip over to Guthrie to see what’s what. Not today. Too much to figure out in Luther to prepare for election returns tonight, and the town board. Have you seen the agenda? Long night ahead. What’s up with the executive session? No one will tell me.
It’s all important. Voting. School boards. Town boards. And on up the political chain. Did you see President Obama proposed a four TRILLION dollar budget today? It’s pretty obvious he’ll get nowhere with a lot of it. Seems part of his last budget proposal is a what if effort … “what if we had this money, THIS is what we could do!”
Isn’t that the “what if” for all of us?
If Luther schools had the money – jobs and programs wouldn’t be on the chopping block as they are. The new board member elected today will inherit governance of a school district on the fiscal brink (and about to be audited by the state). Did you catch on the Luther Public Works Authority agenda tonight that the board will discuss the approximately $3,000 the school district owes the town for utilities? Tough stuff.
If Luther town had the money … Well, what? We’d be able to fight a turnpike or bring it (depending on who you ask and who has the power) OR there’d be resources to fix our local roads and infrastructure so a toll road isn’t even needed. The fire department would have the equipment it needs for the emergencies that do inevitably come. What would downtown look like?
If the State of Oklahoma didn’t have a “revenue failure,” what could we do? We all have some ideas. Instead, at every level of government and in many of our households, we figure out how to get by not with “what if we could” but what can we do without. Builds character, doesn’t it? Might as well.
We can’t do anything about that $4 trillion budget proposal at the White House except wonder just how many zeros that is, but we have a vote and a voice right here in Luther. It’s way (way) easier to sit home and wonder and maybe even complain. You’d be surprised how enlightening, and sometimes entertaining, it could be to attend a school board or town board meeting. There’s plenty of seating. Meeting starts tonight at 7. If you are lucky enough to live in town and have a convenient polling place, just come before 7 and vote, then stay. It’s all at the Community Center.
Watch here later for some election returns (yes, you can also get them from the state election website) on the school board election, and for coverage of the town meetings.
