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Letter: A town divided, but how?

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Staff

With the outcome as close in Chapel Hill as it was, there’s little doubt that the town was divided as to which candidate it preferred for mayor.

But please take the rest of the speculation as to what the close vote means with an extra large grain of salt. The close race means a close loss on one side, a close win on the other and a lot of passionate supporters going through shock, remorse, relief and a whole host of other emotions. Plus, the candidates and most of their supporters are dog-tired. In short, it’s probably not the best time to drill down the results and try to discern what it means for policy.

Unlike the political landscape, the challenges the town faces on Thursday, Nov. 5, are the same it faced on Tuesday, Nov. 3. No one disagrees that, with the economy as sketchy as it is, there’s a real need for fiscal restraint and a hard look at budget priorities. And no one is saying that a reasonable approach to growth downtown and elsewhere is in order. Yes, the solutions offered vary by degree and approach, but the acknowledgement of the challenge is universal.

Like all elections, the views and comments of the candidates, their conduct and their beliefs have been scrutinized six ways to Sunday and filtered through the prism of each voter’s world (or town) view. And, indeed, some citizens will spend the next couple of years sure that the label they placed on a certain candidate is accurate, no matter what that person does in office.

This is where politics pollutes policy, and the press does a real disservice in assisting in the pinning of labels on candidates or groups of candidates. In a divided town, there is a real danger that instead of the letting be of bygones, we’ll see a permanent campaign. One look at the sorry state of discourse and chaotic crafting of policy at the national level and you can see where that will take us at the local level.

The new mayor and the new council are pretty familiar. The labels, though, are fairly new, overly broad and do not serve the town or its people. It would be best to discard them along with the mailers and yard signs and start from scratch than to use them as a basis for interpreting the motives and actions of the individuals the people just elected.

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