43% voter turnout during a mayoral election cycle is pathetic, although useful when recalls are undertaken in the next two years (less total votes = less signatures needed to recall). The town needs to look into changing things to increase citizen participation, because at the present time, it couldn't be easier as far as mailing out ballots so the amount of work required to participate is minimal. My guess, without talking to people who didn't vote, is that the results were pretty much already known, the two venues for learning more about the candidates (the hopelessly biased and completely useless LWV forum and the incredibly biased and now toothless Trail-Gazette editoral board interviews) teach the unfamiliar or undecided absolutely nothing about the candidates, and the town realizes nothing will change when the staff runs the town instead of the trustees running the staff through the town administrator. The results for mayor versus trustees are, per usual, schizophrenic - What message is sent when you re-elect the two incumbent trustees (thus providing the board with a 4-vote majority on most issues) and supplement with two change agents? The mayoral results were not unpredicted, but are mostly sad, given how the losing candidate is actually the more qualified, and the winning candidate will be a puppet for whoever gets to him first (I'll bet John Cullen is close to the front of the line). What does it say when the losing candidate for mayor spends $3000, gets the endorsement of a former mayor who worked side-by-side with the winning candidate for eight years yet wouldn't endorse him, and loses almost 2-1, while the highest vote getter on the trustee slate spent no money, and was almost chased from town four years earlier for swinging the school board election with a sub rosa website that was parodied by two different websites? Expect a lot of lengthy meetings (the two newest trustees will not be shrinking violets) and a lot of proposed changes with a lot of dug-in incumbents fighting to maintain the status quo. PEP and the Poppitz twins (Kristine P. and Rebecca U.) spent tons of money and worked so hard to accomplish so little against an entrenched developer/realtor bloc, but the fight was valiant, and exposed a lot of potential avenues in the future for those tired of seeing what they were promised ignored by those who actually make the decisions. TA Travis Machalek was in his office until the wee hours last night, and I don't think he was writing thank you notes (although I don't think he was submitting his letter of resignation either). Until this police situation stabilizes, his seat is definitely warm, especially if Bill and Mark can swing two more trustees (Marie is the obvious ally, our new mayor will probably hold his finger to the wind on most issues, since he has probably never actually attended a town board meeting, and needs to be brought behind the scenes to receive the security briefings and learn the secret handshakes ASAP) to their side.
Finally, although I had inside information and could release the preliminary results an hour before the official release, the town needs to do a better job of getting election results out faster, so that our retired folks can get to bed at their alloted 8:00 p.m. bedtime. As we already knew, the majority of ballots had already been received over a week ago, and these can be run without releasing results prior to election day. Ten election officials or monitors are probably eight too many (do we have to pay these folks, and why are two of them directly connected to the town, Ron Norris and Christy Crosser?) unless this incredibly silly number is required by law, especially for a one-page ballot that could be computer scanned in a mattter of minutes. Ten presumably literate people sitting around could have hand counted 1700 ballots in two hours. I get that the town wants to be thorough and meticulous, but there is no reason to run ballots through three times for verification when the preliminary results aren't close to begin with.
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