Archive: Opinions

EditorialI argue with myself about the Village of Lansing's way of electing its officials.  I have to admit that I love a good election where candidates debate the issues facing a community in public.  You don't often hear that kind of public debate unless somebody is really unhappy about something.  So election time is the one time of the year when people can argue their vision of the community they live in.  It is a way to step back and think about whether we are on the right track, and what the right track actually is.  Voters then get to choose.  That's where the two (or more) party system really shines, in my opinion.

The Village of Lansing has created its own party, comprised of about 100 residents of all political affiliations.  Most years the Community Party puts up just the number of candidates needed to fill empty seats on the Board of Trustees, and those candidates are elected in a poorly attended April election.  The debate takes place away from the public ear, and there is pretty much no choice.  That seems to go against the American system, but I have to admit that the answer both of this year's candidates gave me when I asked them about it makes sense.  'It works,' they said.  And the saying goes, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

I think the key to it working is that the Village just chugs along like 'the little engine that could'.  Taxes are kept low, services high.  The government is responsive when residents have issues.  The Community Party platform is pretty straightforward.  It is not so much a philosophical platform as a 'keep the village running smoothly, keep the water flowing, the sewer running, keep it a nice place to live' kind of thing.  And I have never once found a Village official unwilling to talk openly and at length about any Village issue I have asked about.  Candidates always agree to be interviewed by me, and in fact the first of the two for this year's election is running in this issue of the Star.  As far as I can see, it ain't broke.

But there is that one thing nagging at me.  Why not debate these things in an open system at election time like everybody else in America does?  The Lansing Fire District shares a lot of the attributes of the Village.  It keeps taxes low and services high, it has an off-season election for fire commissioners that is almost always uncontested.  Why doesn't that bother me?  The only difference is that it didn't form its own political party.

The truth is that if someone wanted to run against Community Party candidates there is nothing stopping them.  The fire district typically has a turnout of about 30 at its elections.  The Village has around 80.  I don't know if a non-Community Party candidate could win, because my sense is that the people who vote are the people who care, and in the Village the people who care are the people who cared enough to form their own party.

But that's not their problem.  Caring about government and trying to make it work in the best possible way for the people it governs is a good thing.  Community Party members are people who take time out of their busy lives to be proactively involved in their community.

So I am torn between the theoretical and the practical.  I love it when government works well, keeps taxes low, provides services its residents want, and then steps back and stays out of the way.  There is no question that the Village government does this in a congenial, collegial manner.  And bringing people of diverse political views together to work out their differences and find solutions to common problems isn't a bad idea.  I think most people wish the U.S. Congress were a little bit better at that.

The only danger is that it takes the debate one layer farther away from the public that it would otherwise be.  And it is important to note that systems that work well because there are good people running them are not necessarily good systems, because what happens if less good people run them in the future?  Now is the time to ask a question like this, because if you wait until less good people are in charge they may not be willing to provide an answer.

While it ain't broke there is no harm to offset the considerable good that these well-intentioned, intelligent, competent, caring people are doing.  But I do think that the question is worth examining from time to time as a check on whether at any given time it does needs fixing.  If the answer is that the system is working for the Village residents, that's a great answer as far as I'm concerned.  If not -- that's why the question should be asked.

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