Choosing candidates is like reading tea leaves | Guest Column | Robert Weschler

Published 11:05 am Friday, August 28, 2009

“Balance the budget …auction off the police department!”

“Protect the Grand Forest …surround it with a NASCAR racetrack!”

“Fix the bursting sewer lines …drill holes in the pipes to relieve the pressure!”

Wow. Was that a great candidates’ forum, or what?

Oh, sorry. Wrong quotes.

These were more like it:

“Trim inefficiencies in City Hall.”

“Use consensus-building techniques.”

“Provide greater transparency in the decision-making process.”

Yes, the recent League of Women Voter’s City Council Candidates’ Forum was a refreshing model of decorum and enlightenment. Held just days before the primary election, the event showcased the serious candidates arrayed onstage.

All were well-informed, well-intentioned, well-manicured. But now that the primary is over, to what extent did the forum actually help voters make their choices? And looking forward, what’s the best way to choose among the remaining six candidates in the upcoming general election?

Let’s review. During the forum, the audience was fortunately allowed to witness the candidates in simulated council action – actually posing questions directly to each other. The candidates themselves generally refrained from laying any easy rhetorical traps. The 25 to 50 usual suspects – I mean, “citizen watchdogs” – were not restrained, however, by any such compunctions. While being held at bay in the council chambers, we were still allowed to submit our questions condensed onto written index cards, to be channeled later by the polite moderator.

Yet, after all was said and done, after reading the candidates’ handouts and listening to their statements and responses, it seemed that few differed much in their fundamental island values and priorities (with the possible exception of one beguiling curmudgeon).

Evidently, the consensus is that what this city needs most now is more fiscal responsibility, accountability, attention to basic services, community dialogue, efficiency, transparency and administrative competence. Oh, and preservation of open spaces, trail connectivity, promotion of the arts, affordable housing, environmental protection (especially of water resources), sustainability, and (drum roll, please) diversification of revenue sources (to bother paying for it all, I presume). Have I missed any?

With such a veritable potluck banquet of ideas, I was tempted to invite them all home for dinner and vote for the entire bunch. Who could argue with any of these positions?

As usual, the devil is in the details. While virtually all of their common values are laudable, many also happen to conflict with each other, if they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Take, for example, “open community dialogue” and “efficiency.” If efficiency is defined as accomplishing the most with the fewest resources in the least amount of time, then surely opening any debate to a raucous town meeting is about as “efficient” as performing brain surgery with an egg beater. (Are we ready now for our health care forum?)

Or take the desire for more so-called “transparency” in the halls of government. The goal is ostensibly to give all stakeholders a clearer view of the political sausage-making process. However, by inviting everyone into the observation room, there will always be some NIMBYite who will object to becoming part of someone else’s idea of a delectable sausage.

As we’ve seen too often, the attendant anguished squeals inevitably slow down the process or bring it to a grinding halt altogether. So much for decisive efficiency. Is it any wonder that some denizens of City Hall, in an attempt to get anything done at all, prefer to work behind closed doors?

Why don’t we just admit to ourselves that we can rarely have our cake and eat it, too. Desirable goals conflict. Choices have to be made. Yet few candidates actively commit themselves on any particular issue lest they risk alienating a potential supporter. Like most candidates anywhere, they simply profess to represent “the will of the people.”

In order to help you decide if you are indeed among the chosen “people” they claim to represent, the next time you stumble across one of them at your local bakery, why not pose them some specific either-or questions? Allow me, in my own humble way, to lay down two sample third rails:

“Which do you think would be a greater waste of money: implementing the collective vision of Winslow Tomorrow or allowing the Winslow Way infrastructure to deteriorate further?”

“Which is more important: the rights of the relatively few waterfront homeowners to protect their privacy or the rights of the majority of landlocked citizens to have access to that limited waterfront?”

Hopefully, their answers to these and other similar vexing questions may help you to decide whom to support among the amiable but ever so slightly squirming candidates.

Happy voting!

Robert Weschler is a Bainbridge Island resident deeply concerned about local politics.