As election season is heating up, a thought crossed my occasionally feverish brain. If the Village Board’s original plan would have been implemented, we would now be having an election to fill Trustee Anderson’s seat. You will recall the original plan was to appoint someone to fill the seat temporarily, and then hold a new election scarcely four months later. Later, after Village Attorney Ray Pollen had spent additional time analyzing this option, and after I personally called the State Elections Board to seek clarification on the matter, it because clear that the option the board had selected was not only bizarre, but illegal. Thank God for small graces.
If the original plan for November elections had passed, we would already be deep in the throes of a new campaign, with our valiant Trustee candidates trying to break through the deafening thunder of Green and Doyle screaming at each other, the fallout from Mark Foley, Harry Reid land deals, and the tidal wave of partisanship now sweeping across the land. It is best that Shorewood elections do not need to compete for attention with the "Marriage Protection Amendment", the death penalty, the war in Iraq, North Korean nukes, immigration policy, and Mark Foley. Imagine trying to get people interested in TIF financing, sewer management policies, and walkability at this point. Believe me, it is hard enough to get people to listen in April, when nothing else is on the ballot.
On another level, Dawn Anderson should be given enough time to learn the processes, and make a positive difference, rather than merely keeping a seat warm for four months before being shuffled out the door. Anyway, this is a policy matter probably not of the least interest to most people at this point in the election cycle.
