AFTER THE HEADY 2008 when the presidential race drove up voter turnout and political involvement locally and across the nation, a simple municipal election seems like a letdown.
The offices up for grabs seem humble: city and borough councils, township offices and school boards and most of the races are uncontested. Voters are also being asked to select state Supreme, Commonwealth and Superior judges and retain others. When you compare it to last year’s history-making election, Tuesday’s is a snoozer.
Things aren’t always what they seem to be. Take a few minutes and read the voters guide stories we’re publishing today and you’ll find out there’s a lot going on and some awfully important local offices to fill in Tuesday’s election. Among them:
• Sharon council — Two council members elected Tuesday will be part of the city’s transition to home rule and be on the first council to rely on a professional manager to run the city. The race features a pair of Democrats and what appears to be the first-ever independent candidate to run for council.
• Hermitage commissioners — A full slate of candidates are seeking the chance to steer the city into the future. A new garbage contract that’s irked some, ongoing land use issues and the city’s finances seem to be the biggest issues. Next year’s census is likely to show that Hermitage is now the largest city in the county and the men or women elected Tuesday will be charged with making the biggest the best.
• Mercer County treasurer — the only countywide office up for grabs. It doesn’t seem that sexy, but Republican blogger turned Democratic candidate Roberta Biros has made the race interesting. Republican Ginny Steese Richardson is running on her 16-year record. Mrs. Biros is promising to update the office but she’s really presenting a challenge to the county’s political hierarchy.
• District justice — Independent candidate Ed Bardella is giving recently appointed District Judge Brian Arthur, who won both parties’ nominations in the spring primary, a race in the general election. The winner will administer low level justice in the Greenville area for the next six years.
• Hermitage, Sharon and West Middlesex school boards — Candidates like to say they’re doing it for the kids and this year’s pool is no different, though the boards they are running for face myriad challenges. Sharon must decide what to do with aging Case Elementary School. Minor controversies over the online Canyon College and the superintendent’s contract have made waves in West Middlesex. Hermitage directors will be working with a new superintendent. All will deal with perennial property tax questions.
• Greenville council — A crowd of hopefuls are seeking seats on council as the borough deals with a recreation crisis and struggles to pull itself out of a state program for distressed municipalities.
• Brookfield schools — Voters can make Joe Pasquerella go away or they can clone him on Tuesday in a race that pits the controversial former board president, his wife and daughter against current and former board members and one of the people behind an effort to toss him off the board.
Now we don’t know about you, but any one of those races is a decent argument against those who say “I’m not going to vote because there’s nothing on the ballot.”
There are dozens of races down the ballot. The people who win them will affect the taxes you pay, how your kids are educated and the quality of life you enjoy or lament.
That alone ought to be enough to draw voters to the polls Tuesday.
But in case that’s not enough, we’ll appeal to your better nature. Right now, thousands of American soldiers are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting and dying in an attempt to give those desperate people a little piece of the freedom we have.
Are you comfortable telling those soldiers that you’re too busy, disinterested or ignorant to fulfill that duty?
Opinion
Voters have lots of reasons to go to the polls on Tuesday
- Opinion
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Former teachers reunited with Farrell Class of 1970
Many of us would have been up a creek without their paddles. Let me explain. When we were kids in the halls of Farrell Junior High School, two of the teachers that we feared (as in respected) the most were Gene Leonard and Tom Cimoric. Back in the days when corporal punishment was legal in Pennsylvania and most other states, Tom and Gene knew how to wield the paddle when we needed it the most.
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Umbrella advisory inspires musing on tea party brains
Here are some thoughts from a guy who has to wonder if tea party followers even know when to come in out of the rain.
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Fundraiser will help good work of food warehouse
The Community Food Warehouse of the Shenango Valley has long been one of my favorite organizations for a number of good reasons. Topping the list, it has performed admirably in supplying food to people in need since it opened in the basement of The Herald in 1983.
I’m amazed at the growth of the warehouse. On the downside, that means our problem of area residents needing food has escalated at an alarming pace.
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Unauthorized home entry adds uncertainty to alarm
The home invasion in Greenville during which an intruder was shot this week highlights the lack of public understanding of how far residents can go in protecting their homes.
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Tougher security might make robbers think twice
I can see that kind of thinking with a gun or a note saying he has a gun or bomb. But a knife? From the other side of a counter?
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OUR VIEW: Condition of old water pipes should wash away any gripes
Any inconvenience to motorists in driving through Sharpsville is insignificant compared to the benefit of the decades-overdue water line replacement project.
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GPS makes wrong turns another relic of the past
We bought our daughter Jamie a GPS unit last Christmas, and while it spends more time off than on, it’s a great resource for long trips and for visits to areas where you don’t know one street from another.
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Brains work in many ways and remember good men
My chemistry teacher and later a friend, Tom Nevant, unknowingly provided a defining moment for me one morning during his chemistry class. Tom, who died in late July a week before his 86th birthday, was a fine man and one of my favorite teachers, chemistry aside.
- Regulation helped to make Canada fat and happy
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Feds could learn a lesson from disaster response here
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT could certainly learn something from the recent response to the Duferco Farrell oil spill into the Shenango River.
One of the biggest complaints in recent years was the response of government agencies to national tragedies, including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and to the massive BP oil well spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In those cases, the government appeared not only slow to react, but unsure how to go about responding to the problems.
Not so, locally.
When it was learned that an oil-water mixture accidentally had been dumped into the Shenango River on Wednesday, emergency crews sprang into action. A lot of the credit must go to Duferco officials, who promptly contacted the proper authorities and immediately took measures to clean up the mess. - More Opinion Headlines
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