Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Back from the polls

Voted "No" on the New Paltz school budget.

Voted "No" on the purchase of new school buses.

And, solely on the basis of his vigorous opposition to the Middle School renovation bond, I voted for Edgar Rodriguez for the school board. That wasn't easy. It was a violation of my policy to not vote for any candidates for the board.

And when I got home, finally having picked up last week's Stalinpaltz Rigormortis-Glamorizer* and having a chance to read the letters about and by the various candidates, nothing I saw changed my mind about any of it. Though I avoided anything about Edgar because I didn't want to regret my vote for him so soon after casting it. But, man, is the political rhetoric around these board elections gaggingly awful. It's just dead, the argumentation is.

* Yes, my newest name for the New Paltz Times.

2 comments:

Dan K. said...

My wife and I were there with you on the double NO! Unfortunately, New Paltz is filled with rubber stamping drones. Even though, as you stated, it was more or more more, it would have sent a real message to the board if we just gave them more. Keep on fighting. Midterms aren't far off.
Oh, by the way, I like your name for the NP Times.

Martin McPhillips said...

I don't want to over-analyze the results, but I probably will.

With just one percent of the budget -- the difference between a yes or no vote -- at stake, there were a suprising number of votes on both sides.

So, the majority of voters were saying "we're not going to quibble over 1%, but we are here, and we're not buying the buses, no to that, and we're returning the guy who stood with taxpayers on the Middle School bond to the board."

A yes on the budget is not a surprise, but a no would have been quite the message, and I'm sorry that voters didn't send it.

It's a long road from here to November and how voters are going to be feeling then. I remember that about this time last year I really believed that Americans would just go to sleep for the summer and wake up without a peep to nationalized health care in September. As we know, it didn't work out that way.

Here comes another American summer. We'll see how it goes.