Remember this photo?
Those were my papers registering to run for a seat on the 23-member Board of Supervisors in Polk County, Wisconsin. Today is election day for all local non-partisan (hah!) local offices in Wisconsin. I am taking a half day off work to go vote for myself. So that I will have at least one vote in my column.
Smokey has made himself a Minnesota resident so that our Minneapolis house can be legitimately homesteaded and we save a few bucks on the property taxes. Andrew is in the jungles of Chiapas and can't even file an absentee ballot because he is out of range of the postal service. Matthew is living and working in Minneapolis and has declared his intent to be a Minnesota resident. Good for them; Smokey and Matthew can vote for Al Franken for Senate in November. My only regret about not living in Minnesota any more is that I can't vote for Al.
But I have this horrible dread, rooted in a junior-high fear of rejection and isolation and embarrassment, that the election results will come out and no one will have voted for me. Even though I know at least ten people who will because they are personal friends. So I am driving 150 miles round trip and taking a half day away from the Form 1040s just to assuage my fears. It is not necessary to be fully grown up and rational to hold public office. Just look at our elected representatives in Washington.
Ahem.
I am unopposed for this seat, as far as I know. It is possible someone has registered as a write-in candidate in the week and a half since I last spoke with the county clerk. However, I am operating on the assumption that, come Wednesday, I will be the supervisor-elect from District 6 of Polk County.
Since there was no compelling need to campaign, I didn't. The reason I decided to run was because no one else had registered to run when there were only two weeks left until the January 2 deadline. A couple people already on the Board and whom I respect had been nagging urging me for several years to run, and this was clearly the time. But I did think that, since I am a relative newcomer to the area, I should introduce myself to the voters. It seemed disrespectful not to. (When I voiced this reasoning to the county clerk, she was speechless. She finally said, "It's been a long, long time since I have heard that kind of thing expressed here." Can you see why I felt that I should run?*)
So.
I wrote a flyer, stuck in a couple pictures of myself, and printed them out (after a few glitches), and distributed them with address stickers to a few friends who had volunteered to help.
Thank FSM for good friends. Where would we be without them?
My pal Colleen, the county librarian, and her friend Alan helped me fold and address and stamp several hundred. Here is Alan, hard at work. Colleen was busy at the copier so she missed the photo op.
The big question in my mind, though, is not whether the county should build that new highway department equipment facility or how we can provide needed services without taxing people out of their homes or how we can deal with the fact that, although we are officially a rural county, we must compete with the Twin Cities for talent in terms of salaries and benefits. No, the real question in my mind, is this: can I knit during the Board meetings?
