The Dead Weight of Democracy

Lots of campaign signs at the Lower Pottsgrove Township Building

Tuesday, but not a lot of voters.

The real story from the primary election yesterday is not who won, but who elected them.

Proportionally, it was just a few lonely souls, who took it upon themselves to go out and do their duty as American citizens.

This tiny proportion of the population, which hadn't even broken the 30 votes mark by 5:30 p.m. at one Pottstown polling place, made all the decisions about who will make all the decisions.

Those who did not vote?

They are just Democracy's dead weight.

They are the ones who gripe and complain, who throw up their hands, who say everything is screwed up and money ruins the whole thing -- and by their inaction make their viewpoint a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Its not hard to get people worked up about the sacrifice our veterans made to preserve our freedoms and our rights -- this despite the fact that we mostly treat them terribly when they return from war and, in most cases, won't even bother to turn out for the parade or ceremonies planned to honor their dead next week.

But those of us who have not served, owe them more than just a debt of gratitude for preserving our rights. We owe them the minimal diligence of living up to our responsibility of being citizens.

Being informed.

And voting.

You would not believe, looking at the seven largely empty polling places I visited Tuesday that people once fought for the right to vote.

This country was founded largely by the landed gentry who didn't much care for how England's

By the time I saw Councilman Ryan Procsal 

shown here at St. John's Byzantine Catholic Church just before

6 p.m., voting totals for the two precincts were 46 and 27.

landed gentry was treating them, and so rebelled.

They feared the mob and limited voting to property owners.

Then to white males.

Then to women.

Finally, grudgingly, allowing African-Americans the franchise as well.

In each of those cases, a group of Americans fought vehemently to secure that right for future generations.

Our failure to honor that sacrifice mocks their efforts and makes us the laughing stock of the free world.

"Beacon for Democracy?"

Please.

In so many of our wars, our veterans fought and died to ensure that the right to choose our own leadership would be preserved.

I wonder if they look at voter turn-out here, and elsewhere in this country, and wonder why they even bothered.

One might think, from the money and effort spent to splash

campaign signs everywhere, that elections are a big deal around here.

If we had any self-respect, we would be ashamed.

Because voting is obviously not a right that we cherish, much less exercise.

As Phil Thees told me at the polling place at St. John's Byzantine Catholic Church, now the polling place for both voting districts in the First Ward, "a tiny minority is now making the decisions for the majority."

Maybe we need to  promote legislation limiting who can vote.

Maybe then we would begin to appreciate it as the source for all the other freedoms we profess to value so highly.

Maybe the only way to make us appreciate the value of what we have is to try to take it away.

As Joni Mitchell so perfectly phrased it, "don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till its gone?"

Here are some Tweets from my travels on Election Day.

Record Retention, Budgets and an Election Dilemma

Photo by Evan Brandt

Technology Director Michael Wagman presents the proposed

technology budget to the Pottsgrove School Board.

Tuesday night's Pottsgrove School Board meeting was a nice way to spend an evening if your areas of fascination are records retention policy and departmental budget reviews.

And when I expressed sympathy after the meeting to
superintendent Shellie Feola and Business Manager David Nester for their endurance of a 3-hour webinar on Gov. Wolf's budget and then another 3-hour board meeting mostly devoted to budget, Nester reminded me in 6 words why I admire him.

"This is what its all about," he said.

And he's right, when it comes to public education, the budget is where the rubber hits the road. My hat is off to both of them. One three-hour board meeting almost wiped me out.

But that's not what I want to talk to you about.

Previously when covering Pottsgrove School Board meetings, I have included in my conglomeration of Tweets, Twitter responses from the community and even from those sitting alongside me in the audience.

I've always considered it a nice way to get community concerns and response out there and into the conversation.

But its election season, and a team of candidates have, to their credit, created an account very honestly called "New School Board."

They not only re-Tweeted my Tweets, for which I am quite obviously grateful, but also responded to them and commented on them.

I confess I had not anticipated this.

I am torn about what to do. After all, this is all new ground for an old dog like me.

On the one hand, I think included those Tweets in the "Storify" down below is part of the public discussion during the electoral process and good for democracy.

On the other hand, the incumbents running and running and board meeting and don't have the same opportunity to participate.

Back to the first hand, incumbency has always been a HUGE advantage in elections and so perhaps they should taste a little of the disadvantage of the challenger for a change.

But on the second hand, this is the Pottsgrove School Board, not the U.S. Senate and its not like incumbents are enjoying huge campaign contributions from giant corporations (who might be people.)

Not sure what to do, in an abundance of caution I decided against including the Tweets from the team of challengers, for now.

But I would be curious to hear from the voting public, and from both the challengers and the incumbents, how this should be handled.

I will be honest, I won't guarantee I will follow your advice, but I would love to hear it.

Anyway, post a message on the bottom of the blog or on this post on The Mercury Facebook page and tell me what you think I should do.

In the meantime, here are the Tweets from the meeting.

Why Do We Need Wards?

This map, made for The Mercury when the wards were last re-districted, hangs on the wall by my desk for easy reference. Do we really need to be any more divided than we already are?

We have a saying in the newsroom, that often-enough Pottstown gets trapped in a conventional kind of thinking we describe as "that's the way we've always done it."

We understand this, because we often find ourselves thinking the same way at The Mercury.

But something shook me out of my conventional thinking last month and I began to ponder the question above...."Why do we need wards?"

What prompted this rumination was the recent announcement of two Democratic candidates for the Fourth Ward seat being abandoned by Borough Council President Stephen Toroney.

Two well-qualified candidates -- one a Pottstown native and Pottstown High School teacher, the other a former candidate who serves on several board ran for mayor and regularly attends council meetings -- announced their intention to run.

(I received an e-mail Sunday from a candidate who has announced his intention to run for the Republican nomination in the Fourth Ward. Look for that story in Tuesday's Mercury).

Ross Belovich

Dennis Arms

So as I wrote the articles announcing the announcements by Ross Belovich and Dennis Arms, I thought to myself: "Boy its a shame we couldn't have both these candidates in the race in November. After all, half the time candidates run unopposed in some wards."

And that's when that final word caught in my mind.

"Wards" are what is preventing Pottstown from enjoying a campaign with both these candidates.

So I began to wonder what purpose they serve.

The obvious answer is to ensure even representation.

But how different are we really? We all pay the same tax rates, we all (presumably) want to see the borough revitalized and getting its fair share of public monies; to see our roads paved, our streets safe and our community desirable.

Is Pottstown truly so wildly diverse that a council person from Ward 7 can't understand the problems of someone who lives in Ward 1?

Now look at those two wards and recognize most people would consider Ward 1 to have a higher African-American population and so they might argue wards ensure a voice for that demographic on council.

And yes, previous occupants of that seat included Alison Hunter and Mark Gibson, one a Democrat, one a Republican; both African-Americans both independent thinkers.

But Ward 1 is currently represented by a Caucasian fellow named Ryan Procsal, who ran unopposed.

And Ward 7 (the "Rosedale" ward) is represented by Joe Kirkland, an African-American who not only ousted a Caucasian incumbent; he then, four years later, beat off a a challenge from another Caucasian ... twice.

So perhaps this is the right place (and time) to consider whether those racial markers matter any more. Wouldn't it be great if they didn't?

February is Black History Month and much of that history is devoted to Black Americans fighting to be considered nothing more than Americans.

Are there still differences? Of course.

Do we need to keep working at these things? Of course.

But maybe one way to do that is to do away with the idea that whites and blacks are so different in Pottstown that we need to encode representation for each in how we elect our representatives.

Pottstown is not the deep South, where laws are needed to ensure voting access for African-Americans.

Yes, Pennsylvania tried to enact a Voter ID law which, intended or not, disproportionately disenfranchises poor and black voters, but a judge thankfully tossed it, largely for those reasons.

And consider that our mayor, Sharon Thomas, is African-American and she defeated a Caucasian incumbent who had upset Thomas's incumbency four years earlier.

And the mayor is a post that is elected borough-wide.

Why isn't everyone else?

The school board is elected borough-wide and lord knows the taxes levied by that body tower over those levied by council.

Each election cycle, we see activists and politicos bemoan the difficulties in finding people with enough time, talent and will to run for public office. Why are we limiting the pool of candidates?

Two excellent candidates might be next-door neighbors. Currently, we could only have the benefit of one.

What if we increased that pool of candidates by a factor of seven? What would we lose?

When people think of Pottstown, this is all we should

want them to think of.

How often have we heard the lament that we have to "find a way to bring the town together?"

Indeed, the first obstacle might be said to be that we are officially and permanently cut into seven different pieces.

What better way to engage the entire community in a discussion of unity than to have a community-wide discussion about making us unified?

Then consider the matter of re-districting.

We're now five years late on the 10-year cycle of re-districting that is supposed to follow every Census.

Do we really have the time and resources in Pottstown to fritter them away on that exercise in futility while we face a host of other more important issues?

I mean come on people, we're 5.5 square miles. We're not Nebraska. What's the point?

It is probably too late to change the election framework for the current election cycle, but perhaps that's better.

After all, although current candidates brought this issue to mind, you can't change the rules of an election in the middle of an election.

But we should consider changing it for the next one.

In the coming year, I feel certain The Mercury is going to address this question, to find out how we eliminate wards and to ask you if you think they should be eliminated.

Tell me what you think, either in a comment here to be shared with other readers, or in an e-mail: ebrandt@pottsmerc.com

As it stands, the only good reason that seems apparent for keeping the ward system is "that's the way we've always done it."

After all, we're one school district. Why can't we be one town?

The Election Creeps In

Signs of electioneering are beginning to appear in the day to day dealings of the Pottsgrove School Board.

As you may recall, the results of the May 21 primary election had the four challengers, Don Clancy, Kelley Crist, and Rick Rabinowitz securing lines on the Democratic ballot line, and Matt Alexander securing one on the Republican line.

However, only three of the incumbents -- School Board President Scott Fulmer, Diane Cherico and Nancy Landes, stayed on the ballot, leaving Michael Neiffer as the odd man out.

That means his term ends in December, when the winners of the November general election are seated.

Neiffer, who spent several years as the school board president, has been among the most outspoken of the incumbents both with ideas and criticisms.

If his performance at the June 18 school board meeting is any indication, if anything, his lame duck status has only made him more outspoken.

Anytime any public officials begins a sentence at a board meeting with "well, I've already pissed everyone off so I guess I'll just keep going," reporters tend to sit up and take notice.

But before we get to that particular incident, consider the cross-fire commentary going on during Tuesday's meeting.

First, Rabinowitz got up to address the board, praising them for opting to adopt a preliminary budget in May that raised property taxes by 2.2 percent, rather than 2.89 percent.

Then, offering up examples of tax hikes and millage rates proposed in neighboring districts, with only Pottstown's higher than Pottsgrove's, Rabinowitz said "I humbly ask the board to look for other ways to cut and lower the tax hike without cutting important programs."

If only it were that easy.

And there was little humble about Neiffer's response, who challenged Rabinowitz repeatedly to make a concrete suggestion, berating him to the point that Fulmer had to intervene and say "let him answer the question Mike."

Pottsgrove challengers, from left, Don Clancy, Matt Alexander

Kelly Crist and Rick Rabinowitz

Rabinowitz offered up the suggestion that a proposed new administrator position could be cut, which Neiffer treated dismissively, but later in the meeting offered up as a way to close a newly discovered funding gap.

Clancy got into the act by chiming in from the audience "looks like you can't afford a new gym" as that discussion unfolded, to which Neiffer responded snappishly "that's the capital budget. Those two things are completely unrelated."

Clancy quietly noted later that both capital and operating budgets are funded out of the same taxpayer wallet.

Board member Justin Valentine, who is not up for reelection, nevertheless noted that the candidates "can say anything and not be responsible for what's said."

Clancy was himself the target of some heated exchange after he offered up a plan he said could shave $8 million off the cost of the high school renovation.

Unfortunately for him, he seemed unaware that one of the major pillars of his proposal -- sending more students to the Western Center for Technical Studies in Limerick -- has been in place for years.

Board members, candidate and non-candidate alike, were quick to point out his error in sometimes sarcastic terms that few would describe as mild.

Clancy told the board the plan was brought forward to encourage debate and discussion. "I'm not saying it's perfect," he told them.

On that, at least, the sitting board agreed.

In fact, after the exchange, Fulmer apologized to Clancy. “I apologize for raising my voice. I tend to get excited. I thank you for the putting the time in to bring this to us. I don’t agree with it.”

Pottsgrove incumbents, from left, Diane Cherico, Scott Fulmer

Nancy Landes, Mike Neiffer

But there was no apology for Kim Trotman, a staffer with state Rep. Mark Painter's office, who got up to the microphone to address the board about Painter's vote against the House of Representatives budget.

However, her general remarks were inadequate to Neiffer's sentiments, who asked her what Painter and his fellow House members intend to do to resolve the long-simmering issue of the increasing burden of property taxes.

"I'll tell you what, let Harrisburg take care of pensions and special education 100 percent, and every other district in this state could take care of the rest," he said.

After the meeting, Trotman approached Neiffer and demanded an apology. It's unlikely she got one.

He could be heard telling her "I don't care how it makes you feel. We went to breakfast with the guy and he didn't even talk to us, and he is a Pottsgrove graduate. It's 12 years we've been waiting for Harrisburg to get off their butt and do something about this."

Which brings us to Neiffer's seemingly accurate observation that he had already "pissed everyone off."

With that warning, he launched into a complaint that the district's marching band program is increasing at an exponential rate, and that the growth in budget line that funds that program, is not.

He cited the example of a student who may have to go with a tuba (or Sousaphone), another without a saxophone and the need to replace raincoats that are more than 14 years old.

Money is in a "marketing account" set aside for just this purpose, but the board refuses to spend it.

"This is not something the music league, or a booster club should be funding," Neiffer said.

Although his motion to fund those three purchases, for a cost of about $10,000 received a second from Coffelt, it was tabled before a vote could be taken on it.

"I'm not saying I disagree with you, I'm just saying we should respect the (budget) process," said Valentine, who made the motion to table Neiffer's motion to fund the purchases.

Neiffer noted that the chairs of both the high school and middle school music departments "were going to be here tonight, but I guess they feel they couldn't be, so I am here speaking for them, and for the students in the music program."

Neiffer paused, and then added pointedly, "and if anyone has a problem with me bringing this us, talk to me, don't go after them."