There’s a plethora of local Facebook posts denigrating Donald Trump. Posts critical of the Supreme Court are also popular, as are posts about a certain congresswoman’s intelligence and passions. There are complaints about our local government too. Carbondale Marketplace and other developments are favorite targets. Unfortunately, relevant decisions about those developments were made 10 or more years ago. These aren’t complaints about local government; they’re complaints about local history.
Ask the complainers what’s currently under consideration and they rarely know. We get hot under our collars about national issues easily enough, but all too often we pay less attention to local matters.
That’s unfortunate because local government has much more impact on our everyday lives than the federal government does. Services like education, utilities, public safety, road maintenance and local parks and recreation are fundamental to the quality of daily life. When a snowstorm hits, it’s the local government that clears the streets so we can get to work, get our children to school, shop, etcetera.
To the degree that local government is effective, residents experience timely snow removal, ample clean water, pleasant, accessible parks and responsive public safety services. Conversely, local blunders are felt quickly, often affecting our lives the day they happen.
In the longer term, local land use decisions determine where homes can be built, where businesses can operate and how land within the community can be used. They influence the character of our community, our property values, how easy or difficult it is to get our groceries home from the checkout stand and what our local economy is like. A decision to allow or disallow a new development can have significant implications for a small community’s landscape and identity.
Given its cogency, it’s good that local government is more accessible than state and national governments. We can attend town council and commission meetings, engage in other public forums and communicate easily with local legislators and administrators. In short, we can influence the policies and projects we’ll have to live with, or live without, locally more easily than we can at higher levels of government.
If you want something done or not done in Carbondale, you can get 30 or 40 signatures on a petition, ask the town clerk to put your group on the agenda for a board of trustees (BOT) meeting and there you are, face-to-face with the legislators you elected. Or, have coffee with the mayor every Friday at 8am at Bonfire.
Since it’s relatively easy to be heard locally, you might expect a high degree of citizen participation. But you’d be disappointed. Turnout for the BOT elections was 41% in 2022 and under 36% in 2020 — the very year our presidential election turnout was over 85%.
Are Bonedalers just plain ignorant about local government? With an important local election now underway, two friends helped me briefly test this possibility by offering random strangers at City Market and the Third Street Center $5 if they could correctly name our mayor, three of our six current trustees and three of our eight commissions and boards. (Can you?) After asking 36 people, I was a mere $30 poorer. Five out of every six people didn’t remember who we had elected or how local government is structured.
Given the results of this little experiment, the voter turnout numbers and what I observe on Facebook, I’m more sure than ever that most of us don’t pay nearly enough attention to the government that has the greatest immediate impact on our lives. That’s too bad because democracy is the best form of government, but I don’t think it’s working well right now and small towns like ours are the easiest places to make it work better. If we can’t even participate actively and competently in Carbondale, how can we hope for much from Washington, D.C.?
If you read last week’s Sopris Sun carefully enough, you can learn about Carbondale’s current BOT candidates. I did. The most substantive question they were asked was what would they have done differently from the current trustees. Two answered thoughtfully. A third candidate’s answer lacked scope. The remaining three ducked the question altogether. I’m guessing those three dislike open disagreement, so won’t be effective leaders, and that the one who focused on one blind spot at one intersection as the main thing they would have done differently isn’t good at seeing the big picture.
Did you read last week’s Sun carefully enough to know which candidates I’m referring to? They probably know and, as I write this, they still have the chance to change my current opinion on March 20 during the candidate forum. That’s how democracy works, but only when we work at it.
Age-Friendly Carbondale believes in active resident involvement in local government and does policy work to make our Town a better place to live for people of all ages and abilities. We invite you to join in our work. Leave us a message at 970-366-6460 or email info@agefriendlycarbondale.org. Let’s bump turnout over 50% this time.
Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale.