Back in November, Your Humble Blogger mentioned that the local election passed a firehouse bond issue by thirty-four votes. The vote was, in fact, 540-506 in favor. Close, no? Well, the people who did not want to pay so much for a new firehouse complained because the ballot was ill-designed, which in fact it was, and were able to get a new special election called to repeal the result of the last one. This election was held last Thursday. The result was that the previous election was repealed, on a vote of 557-340. So. No new firehouse.
This leaves our local elected officials in a tough spot. Yes, the firehouse plan is dead for now, but if (as one might think) they want to use the will of the people as one guide for how to proceed, what should they do? I mean, are the two hundred fewer supporters this time round a result of soft support in the first place, or the result of having an election on a Thursday afternoon between Christmas and New Year’s? Do people want to spend money on this new firehouse or not? Clearly, some do and some don’t; the best situation presumably would be to find some Third Way, some way that would gain the support of a clear majority rather than the rump majorities of the last two elections. On the other hand, maybe there isn’t a third way.
This, by the way, goes back to what I was saying about what Whitman was saying: “Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name?” What has clearly happened, in a small town in Connecticut, is that we have failed to have the flower and fruits of democracy in our people. As a result of having a democracy that is only about elections, the elections themselves lose legitimacy, and are no guide to our officials. For all that we have a town meeting, etc, etc, we have no committed conversation about how we govern ourselves, and how we make ourselves fit to govern ourselves. The firehouse is a small thing, for all that it would have been a big firehouse; the crisis of confidence in the government is a big thing, for all that it’s a small town.
But worst of all is that, on a Thursday afternoon between Christmas and New Year’s, I forgot to vote. That’s the first one I’ve missed in quite a while, Gentle Readers, and although I don’t honestly care very much what the new firehouse looks like, or whether there is a new one at all, I surely hate to miss elections.
Well, I wonder if the town wants to make it best of seven...
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.