MY TURN-Anyone reading CityWatch is aware there are elections Tuesday March 3, so in essence this article is preaching to the Choir. I don’t know why this election in particular has been so depressing. I’m usually the one that sits up all night excitedly waiting for the results. Now I’ll read the results Wednesday morning. As I am writing this I’m trying to figure out how much turnout below 23%, will this election will generate.
I should be happy that we have a lot of first time candidates running-but unless you are an ex political “something” your chances of getting through the primary are slim at best. We Americans are not interested in great leaders…it depends on who has the name recognition and that depends on how much money one can raise.
Notice that most of the incumbents have raised the most money. Our local press has endorsed the majority of incumbents even though they raise issues about some of them. The Mayor has endorsed City Council incumbents. Since, usually they win re-election, he doesn’t need to anger anyone that could vote against his future proposals.
If a candidate wanted to be on a slate with an “official” kind of sponsor … it cost $60,000. Several of the same candidates appeared on three different sponsored slates. Maybe they got a deal … pay for two and get three.
I was having dinner this weekend in Woodland Hills at one of my favorite restaurants. There was a family sitting at the next table within hearing distance … Mom, Dad and two daughters. The girls were actually engaged in conversation with their parents and neither of them was texting.
Since being a ‘CityWatch featured columnist’ gives me license to be nosy, I started chatting with them. It turns out they weren't so typical since both girls went to private school but we had a very interesting and slightly depressing conversation. Both Mom and Dad were in their forties…both with advanced degrees and both working.
I happened to ask them about the upcoming election and what they thought of it. The Mom said “Is there an election?” and the Dad explained that since they live in the Las Virgenes School district they weren’t eligible to vote in the LAUSD election. They were not aware that their Councilman, Mitch Englander, was running unopposed. He didn’t have to spend any money on re-election but the Dad said Englander sends a lot of emails, some of which he reads.
They hadn’t heard about Charter amendments 1 and 2, and after getting a very basic explanation, were of the mind that maybe there would be a better turnout and less apathy if the elections were held at the same time as the State or Federal elections.
The Dad commented that voting didn’t make any difference because no matter who gets elected, things stay the same!
I asked him what he considered to be the biggest problem in the City and he replied, “traffic.” He uses the 101 to and from his office and asked me where are the plans to improve this traffic nightmare? I asked how he would solve it and he quickly replied “A monorail down the middle of the freeway so that those stuck in the traffic could see the monorail leaving them in the dust and be encouraged to use public transportation. He also mentioned having the Orange line add more busses during the commute time.
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My biggest disappointment came from the very articulate teenagers when I asked them if they had heard about the election at school. They hadn’t heard anything about it. The older daughter said that she was looking forward to being able to vote in the 2016 elections. I asked her why she was excited and she said, “Well, I get to make a difference”. She then added, “But I worry about some of the people I know, who will be eligible to vote, but are not educated in the issues.
There is the conundrum…do we want qualified voters or great quantities of voters? In an ideal world we would have both! This was a family that represents our future. They are active in their religious organization, soccer coach and participate in their kid’s school. Yet they felt that their vote wasn’t that important in a local election.
Ask your kids if they had heard anything from their teachers about the election on Tuesday? I hope, that with so much at stake especially for LAUSD, they were informed. It would be a conflict of interest to talk about individual candidates, but what local elections were all about and why the LAUSD is so important to students, would be a good start. Kids have great potential convincing their parents or “shaming” them into voting.
The City Ethics Commission came out with suggestions on how to increase turnout. Rather than a lottery…how about a program to involve the High Schools in a real live interactive civics program? Show our future leaders what democracy (the good part) is all about and that they can make a difference.
So when this ghastly Primary is over …a good question for those who made it through the LAUSD race … is how they would instill knowledge and a sense that voting does make a difference, to their constituents?
For those of us over eighteen … we are stuck! Campaign finance is an old fairy tale that probably doesn’t have a chance. The Citizens United decision has decreed that only those who can raise the most money win elections and leadership in the other areas … be damned.
We continue to watch the “Bozos” we sent to Congress show their ignorance of the facts and in general make the legislative branch a spectacle.
For one who usually sees the glass three quarters full, I am feeling very pessimistic. I don’t have the answers to make it better. All I can do is to sit back and write about it.
As always comments are welcome.
(Denyse Selesnick is a featured CityWatch columnist. She is a former Publisher/journalist/international event organizer. Denyse can be reached at: [email protected] This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . )
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 18
Pub: Mar 3, 2015
