Trenton Councilwoman Robin Vaughn sure has ideas
Trenton Councilwoman Robin Vaughn - who I’ve never met, but who continues to entertain and delight me with her keen eye for how to make news - floated a trio of ideas a few weeks back that, are, in order, good, so-so, and terrible, with the terrible one already dead since I started typing.
First the good: She wants to move Trenton’s municipal elections to November, in line with all other elections. Makes sense. I have no issue with it.
The fact Trenton’s elections are held all by themselves creates problems. Consider: The runoff elections are held in June, and Reed Gusciora won the last one in 2018. Only 22 percent of eligible voters came out to vote. Would more people come out and vote if the election were held on the day of the general election? You’d have to think so.
But - and this is a big but - the fact Trenton’s elections are nonpartisan makes moving the election difficult. As it stands, the Trenton mayoral election is a free for all; you have to get 50 percent of the vote to win. If no one gets 50 percent, then the top two vote-getters face off.
Which brings us to the so-so: Vaughn wants to get rid of runoffs, which is an interesting idea, but should only be in play if the city also gets rid of nonpartisan elections. Otherwise, there’s a real risk someone could walk away the winner of the election with a tiny percentage of votes. Basically, if 20 people decide to run, and only 8,000 people vote, someone could legitimately become the next mayor with 401 votes. That’s ridiculous.
So to get rid of runoffs, the elections have to be partisan, with whoever gets out of the Democrat scrum (almost certainly) trouncing whoever the GOP puts out there.
Really, you can’t move the election without also ditching the nonpartisan method. It would cause chaos.
Lastly and terrible? Vaughn wants Trenton citizens to be able to elect their school board members. (Council voted against this Thursday evening.) As it stands now, Trenton is one of only 15 school districts in the state where the school board is appointed by the mayor.
The council made the right decision.
Not only do I think putting the voters in charge of this is a terrible idea, but I’ll double down on it and say all other municipalities in the state should look into the idea of taking the school board vote away from the residents and allowing their mayor (or council) to make the choices.
See, the problem with elected school boards is that any idiot can be elected.
Now of course, any idiot can be elected to anything we have an election for, but when it comes to the school board, I tend to think we should try to idiot-proof it as much as possible considering A) it’s our kids futures we’re talking about and B) the vast majority of our property tax money is going to be spent by our local board of education.
Now, to be fair, I am not saying everyone on your locally-elected boards of education are idiots; I’m just saying some of them are. Trust me on this. I’ve spoken with a few of them. In many districts.
And furthermore, I’m not saying that a mayor (or council) might not take it upon themselves to put people on the school board as favors, although I don’t see that as something too dangerous, as being on the school board pays nothing and is about as glamorous as … well, I can’t think of anything less glamorous.
School boards should be made up of people who truly understand the nooks and crannies of public education. They should be vetted.
Wealthy districts like Montclair do it, school systems that struggle like Trenton do it. I think it’s a lot better than electing school board members, some of whom might be completely out of touch or know next-to-nothing about what they should be doing.
So good, OK, and terrible. That’s my verdict.