Fired up electorate needed
Well, it’s that time again.
The municipal election, although it isn’t until Oct. 22, is in the air.
The first official sign: The nomination period is now underway. It started this week, on Tuesday, May 1, and goes to July 27.
Already prospective council candidates are out and about. Already some have started collecting signatures of 25 eligible voters for their nomination papers, as now required. Already there are slogans on social media, like John Chiocchio’s ‘Vote for Progress … Not for Promises’ spotted Wednesday on Twitter.
Already there are people talking to media, like Lucas Spinosa, who announced to this newspaper earlier this week he would be running for a Ward 3 council seat. Just two examples here in the beginning days.
The second sign is the informative and helpful “Nominations Now Open” tab on the city’s website, www.welland.ca which is up and running. It has everything a prospective candidate for city council, the region and one of the school boards needs to know, right at her or his fingertips. A great resource for seasoned campaigners and first-time outers alike.
The third sign could very well be this Saturday, at Welland’s farmers market.
Like swallows who would return to Capistrano, political candidates have a way of turning up at the market when an election is in the air and when the campaign is in full swing, returning week after week. They appear out of thin air (Poof !) during those periods and once it is over and done, disappear until the next, if there is a next in their future.
Two notable exceptions, in my book, are the late, great Peter Kormos, who prided himself on being a four-season marketgoer and supporter and councillor Daniel Fortier, who attended our market with regularity until his move to New Brunswick but who still returns whenever back in the Rose City, remaining true to his roots and his routes.
Here’s a prediction. There is reason to believe voters will be pumped by the time election day rolls around a little more than six months from now. It’s difficult to recall a time municipal politics was as tumultuous as it is in current day.
Recent controversies at big brother, Niagara Region, will have a ripple effect and will exact a toll on the lower level, I dare say. For the first time in Niagara’s history, the regional chair will be directly elected by general vote. A few months ago my reaction, and that of many, many voters I dare say was: ‘Yawn! Who cares?’ But now, in large part due to investigative, intrepid reporting by local media, interest in regional government and the regional chair’s election may eclipse that of many if not most mayoral elections.
A well informed, politically aware and active electorate is what’s needed, in local communities like my hometown Welland and right across Niagara. Here’s why.
Voter turnouts weren’t exactly what one would call earthshaking in the 2014 municipal election. The average turnout was 41.3 per cent (compared to 41.9 in 2010), ranging from the low, 34.3 per cent in St. Catharines to the high, 52.5 per cent in Wainfleet, the only area municipality where turnout topped 50 per cent. Welland’s turnout was a dismal 35.8 per cent. (Source: Voter Turnout,Municipality websites)
This means about one in three Wellanders took the time to vote in 2014. How disgusting is that!?
Well, a fired-up electorate is just what’s needed to make participatory democracy the potent force it is meant to be. Judging by turnout at Tuesday evening’s Welland council meeting where the sole agenda item was discussion of a proposed housing development at now-closed Hunters Pointe golf course, many folks in that part of the city are indeed fired-up. Many folks, as in a few hundred, maybe close to 400 according to one estimate that I have heard. This is anything but par for the course in the Rose City.
My gut tells me we are in for an interesting municipal election campaign, one that will be charged with controversy and volatility. The swallows may not be so eager to return.