That was quite an election. Upsets in the regional district and the City of Greenwood. It’s not an easy task to run for office.
I spent Saturday night waiting anxiously for the results to be posted. Greenwood took forever to get it all counted. I finally got tired of sitting there and decided to clean the house. The dishwasher got loaded, the floored vacuumed. There’s only so much a fellow can do in one day though. As important as I feel it is that I set standards for myself; I also feel it is important that I consistently come close to meeting them.
But the time it was taking for the count to come in from Greenwood was leaving me few options. If I continued to try to pass the time by cleaning the house then I was very definitely going to go way beyond my usual standards— and that wouldn’t be too good.
So I put the dust mop away and decided that the dirtiest thing left in the house was probably me. And since it was Saturday night anyhow it seemed like a good time to jump in the shower.
Wouldn’t you know it! The results came in while I was under the faucet. That’s one way to speed up the political process – make sure it is an inconvenience to the taxpayer and results start to happen.
I was almost kicking myself for not having gone down to Greenwood city hall for the count. The atmosphere in the room was probably so filled with drama and tension that you could have cut blocks of it out of the air and sold them as mementos of the great election of ’14.
Only time will tell if much got changed though. Three of the five who sat at the Greenwood council t table last term are still there. Five for five in Midway. Vicki Gee is going to be interesting to watch as she settles into her new position as rural director in Area E. She used Facebook quite a bit (one of the few candidates who did participate in the pages that were established by Christopher Stevenson— a former member of Greenwood council himself and unsuccessful candidate against Bill Baird in Area E three years ago).
But Vicki Gee used Facebook to explain and expand on her platform throughout the campaign. In the end she pulled in almost 40 per cent of the ballots that were cast—over eight points ahead of incumbent Bill Baird.
So maybe the social media thing does have some use in local elections. Even out in the rural areas where connection to the Internet doesn’t come easy.
Congratulations to all who put their names forward in the election; and a special thank you for services rendered to those incumbents who were defeated. None of those who were running for re-election to the same seat they’d held last term were so hard done by on Saturday night that you could say they had been turfed from office. They can leave with their heads high.
Now it is time to do what can be done to help the newly-elected councils and director settle in.
With the election over we now have an opportunity to show the senior levels of government that one reason politics at the local rural level works well is because we can move forward together without the hindrance of a party line to get in our way.
Hopefully moving onward and upward for the good of the community and region, together.