Approximately thirty very familiar faces showed up for a special meeting of the CBC Thursday night to listen to Council Members Lawrence Webb and Dan Sze discuss an initiative to move city elections from May to November.
Nearly half of those in attendance were founders-staff of the conservative FCT blog (who, incidentally, voiced opposition to the initiative without identifying their affiliation), members of the local Republican Committee, and/or were campaign workers for Council Members Team Dave Snyder and Nader Baroukh. The conservative opposition voices teamed with a handful of CBC old guard to oppose a change which they acknowledge would at least double voter turnout and save city taxpayers an estimated $20,000 to $60,000 every local election cycle. Team Dave Snyder and Council member Hal Lippman were in attendance but did not speak.
Many of the longtime CBC members, which has as one of its founding principles "Citizen Participation: Encouragement of residents to register and vote in all elections and to participate fully in public affairs," spoke out against the initiative. Their concern is that the CBC could not change and would become irrelevant in a November election.
The discussion around moving elections from May to November has been fastracked in independent towns and cities across Virginia due a state budget cut this year which eliminates state funding for local May elections. The reality of having to fully fund off-cycle local elections has caused Falls Church City, Fairfax City, Manasses City, Leesburg, Herndon, Vienna, and several other small localities in Virginia to reconsider whether to fully fund May elections themselves or consolidate local elections in state supported off-presidential year November voting cycles.
The discussion at the CBC meeting had good detail around the administration of such a change, but the policy reasons cited against moving the elections were painfully predictable and unpersuasive.
Several speakers spoke passionately about the delightful weather we have in the spring, and how pleasant it is to have quiet, thoughtful, local elections outside of the noise of the raucous November season. They talked about how we have always had May elections. Several expressed concern unqualified November voters would be ignorant of local issues and spoil the nonpartisan spirit of city elections. Others offered concern that city voters would have to stand in long lines in the cold fall weather. There was angst about ballots filling up a whole page with city elections names stuck in an undignified corner.
The discussion reminded me a lot of other issues which the city has bungled. The shire villagers, or at least those gentle giant souls that show up at these type of meetings, love their quaint. Damn they love their quaint. Our boutique cost-city-taxpayers-$8.00-every-time- someone-rides-national-disgrace GEORGE bus system boondoggle is an example. Our please-fire-people-but-do-not-cut-the-children's-city-taxpayer-funded-Halloween-party is another. Our ongoing shameful please-do-not-build-mixed-use-buildings-which-fund-our-city-services-and-bring-in-undesirable-children debate is still another.
I could go on. And some might say I have already.
Falls Church City has managed to create a closed election system by creating a status quo which suits both stealth conservatives and the progressive establishment majority. They have done so by disenfranchising arguably the most educated and active voter base in the state. Our community has nearly 80 percent turnout in November elections ... and as low as 11 percent turnout in May elections. The reason is simple ... our local candidates are unknown and un-moored to any political values which residents can trust. So our educated and active voter base stays home rather than try to guess at whether or not the person who just knocked on their door, or who they read some ad about, is a good candidate or not.
There are unanswered questions about the initiative to move local elections to November which need to be addressed. But facts are stubborn things. The fact that our educated and active citizen voters do not participate in local elections means important decisions which impact our day-to-day lives in the community are being made by a small, odd, pairing of self-dealing interests who are very satisfied with suppressing your vote and self-dealing local politics under the anything but benign tyranny of pleasant weather, short lines, old traditions, and simple ballots.
