Election 2010: A good thing

With less than a week before the election I think it is safe to say that this has been an election unlike any other, almost all for the good.

by Scott Hettrick

As many of us tend to get overly engaged in City Council campaigns and the accompanying trumped-up issues that mean so much to us for a few months and then are largely dismissed for the next two years (kind of like our sudden intense interest in obscure Winter Olympics sports like luge and biathlon for two weeks every four years), a large portion of the city usually barely even notices that there is an election campaign going on, let alone have any clue of the candidates or issues.

But this year it feels like we had more community participation than ever before:

* Four evening forums within just a few weeks of each other were each packed with 100 – 200 people each, and another lunch forum had about 50.

* John Stephens, Terry Miller and the gang at Arcadia Weekly had the great idea of staging a debate prepared and moderated by Arcadia High School’s state champion Constitution team, and it was carried off flawlessly and inspiringly last week for the benefit of everyone involved. As Stephens noted in his introduction, the students had the rare opportunity to make a real impact on a real election, which will carry a significant ripple effect for years to come in Arcadia and perhaps elsewhere.

* Every candidate had his own blog here at ArcadiasBest.com, which generated nearly 200 combined publishable comments (more than 60 unpublishable) from voters and responses from the candidates, a good many of which were constructive and all of which were informative, not only about the candidates but, in some cases, sadly, about the way some of our fellow Arcadians think and behave. Despite some of the unavoidable vitriol and cringe-inducing comments, readers and candidates had an unprecedented informal 24/7 dialogue with each other at a single location throughout the campaign, which in turn attracted more people to become informed by reading those entries, and which sparked more community dialogue in general.

* The Chinese media, from what I am told, has been filled with far more stories, ads, and general coverage of this election than ever before, as have several prominent Chinese language websites.

* Two reader polls here at ArcadiasBest.com during the campaign which have generated a combined total so far of more than 650 votes provided an admittedly unscientific but nonetheless interesting snapshot of how participants might vote in the election (something we have not had before since Gallup, CNN, and USA Today don’t seem interested in polling Arcadians during City Council races).

* The recent outrageous proclamations by Henry Nunez — first a hunger strike, then laying across railroad tracks while calling for two candidates to withdraw from the race — have injected a healthy dose of controversy and levity in the campaign while attracting a lot of attention and dialogue that have been absent from previous elections. And don’t overlook his core messages, which are heartfelt from this Cuban-born and nearly lifelong Arcadian who is strategically using his antics to draw attention to his message.

Matt Denny’s Ale House Restaurant

I wrote here nearly three months ago that I was glad to see a better representation of age and cultural diversity in the candidates for Arcadia City Council this year rather than the same white males over 50 years old that have served for years and decades, in some cases, on the Council.

We did get one candidate in Paul Cheng who is much younger than the rest. And we did get three strong Asian candidates, including Sho Tay, Jason Lee, and Cheng.

I didn’t say that my fellow 50-plus white guys are not good candidates or that they have done anything but a good job — no better proof than two consecutive years being named by Business Week magazine as the best city in the entire state to raise kids. And I didn’t say that age, gender or race have anything to do with making one a better candidate than another. But all things being equal, or nearly equal, it would be appropriate and beneficial to all residents of Arcadia to see candidates and eventually Councilmen who reflect everyone in town. (Once again, we did not get a woman candidate even though there are many qualified women in Arcadia. And there is not a single Democrat or even an independent among the six — all Republicans.)

Interestingly, all things may in fact be relatively equal in the minds of some voters who attended one or multiple forums and heard pretty much the same responses across the board by all six candidates to nearly all the questions.

Part of that is because there are really no major or polarizing issues in Arcadia, and let’s not forget that is a good thing. Despite the way overblown and misleading campaign rhetoric about massage parlors and crime, this is a very darned good and well-run town with relatively few and mostly minor issues that make Arcadia the envy of many other cities.

But it makes it hard to pick a candidate when none seem able to identify any major changes they would make.

I am pleased to feel as if we have six very strong candidates in this election. I didn’t see anything to suggest that we could go too far wrong with any of them serving on the Council. They all appear to be sincere in their efforts (it was hard not to notice the level of personal and financial commitment of the two first-time candidates, from the size and hours of Paul Cheng’s staff at a headquarters building rarely seen in Arcadia politics, to the near-daily spottings of Jason Lee and his wife Daisy tirelessly walking the streets of Arcadia and talking endlessly with residents), though the proof of that sincerity is always in the pudding, which doesn’t set up and become clear until after it’s too late. We certainly have ample evidence of the qualifications and the time and work that the three current and former Councilmen, Peter Amundson, Bob Harbicht, and Mickey Segal, put into their mostly volunteer positions on the Council. And anyone involved with just about any community organization can’t have helped but see how actively engaged Sho Tay has been with so many groups for many years.

Here’s hoping that all of this  extra community involvement and diversity and strength of candidates (and last-minute prompting by Henry Nunez) results in a strong, if not a record turnout at the polls Tuesday.

In the meantime, my biggest disappointment is that despite all the extra input from candidates and the community, or more likely because of it, with six days to go I am still undecided about two of my three votes. I wish I felt stronger about a couple more candidates, but at this stage, to not have candidates that I feel are easily ruled out, that’s also a good thing.

— By Scott Hettrick