Archived Story
Editorial: Let local control prevail
Published 9:16am Monday, November 7, 2011
We are confused. State Rep. Pat Garofalo plans to introduce a bill that would bar school districts from holding elections in odd-numbered years.
Garofalo is a Republican. His intentions are ironic because Republicans, the last time we checked, were about granting more local control to school boards and getting state government regulations out of the way.
But here is a Republican who thinks the Legislature knows better than local folks when to hold local school levy elections.
His efforts go against the stand many GOP candidates take when running for the state Legislature. For instance, Republican Kathy Green, an Austin school board member, last year ran against Democratic Sen. Dan Sparks in the Senate District 27 race.
The primary reason Green ran for office — which she stated over and over — was that she wanted to grant more local control to schools. She said when she was younger, parents and other district residents could resolve issues with their schools by going straight to the superintendent, a principal or a school board member. She said these days there are so many state rules that parents are frustrated and feel helpless.
So which way does Garofalo stand in the Republican compass? More regulation or less? More local control or less? Does St. Paul know better than Albert Lea when to hold Albert Lea’s levy elections?
We say let the school boards determine when they want to have elections. After all, why bother electing local school board members if the state doesn’t trust them with a reasonable measure of control?
Furthermore, when school districts hold elections on the odd years, it gives the community time to discuss issues surrounding education of their children. That is what has happened in Austin this past month. When the levy elections happen in even years, the school issues get drowned out by campaigns at the city, county, state, federal levels.
Garofalo and his cohorts can find better things to do with their time. Try crafting a state-level jobs bill that helps get Minnesotans back to work. Wasn’t that what Republicans said they would do when they ran for office in the last even-numbered year?
Democrats come up with no ID requirements to vote in elections to increase participation and you support them even though thousands of the registration cards are returned to the state marked return to sender address unknown. A Republican tries to get better turn out by holding election at same time as regular elections and he is interfering with local control? The whole idea of holding school and township elections on off years is the limited number of people voting. Why do you want only informed people voting in one election cycle but everybody voting in another cycle?
Wouldn’t this also be a cost saving measure, aren’t we trying to go more with less, are we not to be good stewards of the public’s money? BUT there is dirty secret in the current scam/scheme.
You can get what you want passed more easily i.e. increased levy’s, raise taxes, in the off year passed easily because fewer people are inclined to vote. If you have lax voter I.D. like we do currently, you can manipulate the outcome relatively little effort, hence the opposition to State Rep. Pat Garofalo’s bill by the trib and the dfl.
Why wouldn’t people not want to show an I.D. card to vote is beyond me, this assures integrity in the election process and their vote counts, it won’t be compromised by somebody voting “early and often” or “from beyond the grave”. What is so hard about one person one vote unless you approve and or engage in voter fraud overtly or covertly or by looking the other way because it benefits a certain party.
A simple and effective way to combat the trib’s and the dfl’s advantage in the off years is to vote, do not let the few have control of the election and the outcome.
This is a war of ideas time to get off the couch be active, start exercising your rights, because some people are counting on apathy and laziness to get what they want.
Exercise your rights before the become privileges!!!