By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
OCT. 8, 2019 | Today GwinnettForum begins a new service for its readers, aimed at helping make good choices in contested Gwinnett city elections of November. We take this move as part of the first of our Continuing Objectives for Gwinnett County, which says “High quality candidates for elective office in Gwinnett.”
On the right side of each web page, we show a “Candidate Profile” button. Click it and it will take you to a list of 52 candidates for the 12 contested city elections in Gwinnett. There are no city elections this year in Auburn, Berkeley Lake, Duluth and Rest Haven.
The Forum provides this list of candidate profiles as its part of public service to the community. We are not charging the candidates for this service. All candidates featured in GwinnettForum are voluntarily responding to our questionnaire. Some candidates have yet to complete the profile. We will add their completed profiles as they are submitted in the coming days.
It’s our hope that in each of the cities where there are elections, our readers will carefully scrutinize the profiles that the candidates submitted, in order to determine which they think will make the best mayor or city councilperson in their cities. After all, we believe in the people’s voting decisions, and anticipate that their choices will serve their city admirably.
While most of the profiles are answers to simple demographic questions, the final question asks simply: “Why do you want to get elected?” You will note that we ask that the candidate explain their reason for running in less than 100 words. Sadly, a few candidates went over 100 words, and to be fair to all, we clipped those submission after 100 words.
The Pew Research Center has reported that “Only 17percent of Americans today say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (3 percent) or “most of the time” (14 percent).” This is at an all-time low.
Yet it’s said that the best government is the one closest to the people. After all, it is at the city level people are most closely connected to their government, concerned about such essential services as pothole repair, zonings, garbage collection, and sometimes police protection. They know they can show up at council meetings and be heard when they have a problem, and that often, they will know the people on the council personally. After all, they are the people they talk to at the grocery stores, or go to church with, or see at their kids’ soccer and baseball games, or are on stage at local plays.
What concerns many are the local residents who do not vote at all, or fail to register to vote. You wonder why. It may take some purely local incident to raise their level of interest in city government.
People seeking elective office, especially at the city level, are fulfilling their civic responsibility in this distinctive way. Certainly, they don’t do it for the pay. (Two cities in the county, in Buford and in Grayson, do not even pay their elected officials.) Even in cities where there is a stipend for service, it is usually small.
Therefore, we ask readers to consult the Candidate Profiles to become better acquainted with their neighbor-candidates. Then go out and support your choice, in anticipation that this will lead to better government.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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