(As printed in the Times Call opinion section 5/24/10)
At the May 18th Longmont City Council meeting, I found it deplorable that a representative from a local partisan group would insinuate that because city council candidates who were appointed received more money, that they were only elected because they brought in more money. Is that supposed to be a bad thing? Candidates who lost…lost because they were inferior candidates.
Voters who took the time to vote aren’t stupid. Then to read a letter from this partisan party representative in the Times Call looking for more volunteers for petition distributors to help push for Clean Campaigns to keep ‘special interests’ out of elections. Since when is a partisan group not working for their own special interests? Seeing how known members of one party keep speaking about this, it’s apparent that this is a partisan backed, agenda driven petition.
One candidate who overwhelmingly beat the incumbent raised a lot of money in this election because multiple community members donated to her (check her reports, most were small contributions). If her opponent was separately assailed by outside groups, it’s because her opponent had a lousy record of service while in office and angered a lot of people.
The majority of the campaign literature circulated during the campaign was information that had been public knowledge for awhile amongst those who take the time to follow council. I’m disgusted by all the hidden conspiracy rhetoric being thrown around and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from the partisans who gather as a group at council meetings and file down one by one to gripe about how their party line candidates lost the election. Here’s a tip: Get better candidates. The election rules will be ironed out, but the motives of those who question the process with nonsensical rhetoric need to be transparent as well.
-Brigette Rodriguez
Coordinator of Vote! Longmont
