Today is November 3rd, 2015 and it is an Election Day. It's not a Presidential Election but it is none the less an important election day. All election days should be considered important but the off year election days will actually affect you more than a presidential/senate/house election ever will. So before you go home from work today, stop by your voting place and cast your vote, it IS the American thing to do!
This year in my little now home town of Morrisville, PA, it has been a contemptuous year of politics. It has really amazed me that small town politics can be so personal, and nasty and full of HUGE egos. I have to believe that no one starts out that way but usually somewhere along the way, politics ends up corrupting even the most genuine and good intending people.
So today is the day we have all been waiting for, will the old regime be overthrown by the new progressive pack? Or will we have 4 more years of what we have had?
You have to understand the chess game that is local politics. In Morrisville, it is and has been predominantly Democratic forever (industrial town, east coast, just outside of Philly...Hello). It's a small, and I mean small like in only 2 miles small, town adjacent from Trenton, NJ, which as most people know was a big industry town many years ago. "What Trenton Makes, the World Takes" was the motto. Currently the ratio of Democrats to Republicans is almost split even being 51% Democrats and 49% Republicans. Which makes for some Interesting Facebook time I can tell you that.
There was a time when the Republicans headed the helm and I will say from what I have read and can find, kept taxes artificially low, did not spend money on the things that they should and ruled the roost as if they owned their own private kingdom...BUT
The Democrats are no shining angels in this disaster movie. For years now they have been entrenched in nepotism to the point where just about everyone that works in the town is related to or friends with some member of the counsel or boro manager (which is another post in and of itself). And I'm not saying that these people are bad people but is that really the right way to run a town? Wouldn't it be more prudent to hire the most qualified person for a job? There is also the little problem about them allowing our town go basically without a police force for about 14 months before they decided to do something about it. A report that cost the tax payers $100,000's of dollars that just "poof" disappeared.
My point is that no one is perfect, but I believe that things will get better if we collectively work together. Sometimes it's wiser to bite your tongue then to have an opinion on everything in order to make things work for all involved. We need leaders in our community that will listen to the good and the bad and include the community and work for the betterment of everyone.
So before I leave work and go cast MY vote, I just want to say Good Luck to everyone Running in Morrisville and lets work together to move forward!