If you have a beef with the Haines Borough government, it’s time to push your point.
This is what elections are about.
In fall of 2016, the Haines chapter of the Alaska Miners’ Association was concerned about the state’s consideration of Tier 3 protections, possibly including placing those protections on the Chilkat River.
So the miners held a local meeting and they invited all the candidates running for the assembly – myself and Heather Lende among them – to attend their breakfast meeting and answer questions about our position on Tier 3 and other development issues.
We candidates attended and told them what we thought. Heather and I spoke in support of Tier 3, which certainly cost us some votes among the mining crowd, but we were elected anyway.
As one mining advocate who opposed Tier 3 told me, “I disagree with you, but I like your other positions so I’m voting for you. Tier 3 probably won’t come up during your term, anyway.”
During the same campaign I was amazed by how many people – including folks I hardly knew – pulled me aside privately, in my office on Main Street, to question me about my positions.
A few days ago, a person connected to a pending borough improvement project supported by the current assembly phoned me to ask if the assembly could reassert its support prior to the next assembly being seated.
I said yes, but you really need to ask each assembly candidate if they support the project. That’s your best wampum. Get support and get promises.
It’s election season. Five candidates want your vote. Whether or not you vote for them should depend on their positions on issues and what you know of them, their character, record and abilities.
But because it’s an election season, it’s also time for you to turn on candidates to the issues that you care about, to try to make them their issues, and thus, to make them community priorities. The equation works because for the next few weeks you have something they want – a vote.
If you have a fancy job or title, or head up an organization, or even are just the loudest mouth at a regular coffee klatch, you’re of even greater interest to candidates because you can possibly deliver more than just your vote. You can deliver the votes of your friends.
Just like putting up campaign signs, or speaking at the senior center, or going door-to-door, citizens pressing candidates for what they want in exchange for their vote is a legitimate and beneficial part of the electoral process. It helps candidates by letting them know what’s actually important to people and helping them get elected.
(Though beware: The most successful and enduring candidates rarely make unbreakable promises.)
But if you don’t like the way a policeman treated your teen-ager, or you’re upset about traffic around the cruise ship dock, or you think taxes are too high, this is the time for you to pounce. For the next two weeks, politicians need to listen to you, because they need your vote.
An election is about more than having to vote. It’s about having your say.
Have at ’em.