Let’s do our homework

Choice is a good thing and with the upcoming municipal elections, there’s certainly a lot to choose from when it comes to candidates.

In the Central and North Okanagan (the readership area covered by The Kelowna Daily

Courier), only Chris Pieper is being acclaimed as mayor of Armstrong.

All other valley mayors, in fact, are facing at least one challenger.

In Peachland, Mayor Cindy Fortin has five opponents.

While, depending on the community, the mayoral challengers range from fringe to serious, and the people running for office deserve praise and not scorn.

Nothing is worse for a community than a mayor winning by acclamation.

Scanning the uncensored world of social media, many of the comments posted thus far are cruel. It’s important to remember a golden rule of journalism. It’s fine to criticize the person’s ideas — just not the individual.

Between now and voting day on Oct. 20, the voter has a job to do as well as the candidates.

The first thing is to check and see that you are on the voters’ list. This is important if you are new to the area, have recently moved, or recently turned 18.

If you are out-of-town on Oct. 20, find out when and where the advance polls are.

For those residing in seniors’ residences, find out if a travelling ballot box is coming to your facility and at what time.

Not everybody is able to attend candidate forums, but you can learn about who’s who by reading the newspapers, visiting candidate websites and even emailing a question to the candidate. You may be surprised, but most will respond.

Lawn signs are an effective way of getting a name out — especially for political newcomers — but rack cards and print advertisements still remain the greatest education because they can offer detail. A lawn sign usually only offers the name, office and a witty caption.

Anyone who runs for office deserves our thanks. They are offering themselves for public service.

An election is the only job in the world where the applicants are ranked and the public learns of the outcome the following day.

For anyone who has ever applied for a job before, we don’t know whether we were the company’s second, third, fourth, or 26th choice.

With elections we do.