Election Reflections

 

In November of 1993, I ran for and was elected to the Cascade City Council. The main issue, if I recall correctly, was that then-Councilman Kenny McDermott (RIP) was splitting up city street repair work into component parts, so jobs came in below $25,000 and didn’t need to be publicly bid. Reporting for the Cascade Interpreter, the newspaper I published until then (The last edition is dated Winter 1993-4.) I discovered this, squawked and was voted onto council.

My dominant memory of being on there was Bill Gehl, also on council then, abusing me so spectacularly, that I bashed the desk, swore and stomped out of chambers. In defense of Mr. Gehl, I can safely say I was such a doofus about infrastructure, I wouldn’t have known what a piece of rebar was if one whacked me on the butt.

I know a 100x more now because my brother Paul has since worked for the city, and every time there was something I didn’t understand, he would it explain it or show me how it worked. Not that he didn’t get exasperated with me on occasion either:  “Can’t you see where the water is running?” “Well, now that you point it out, I can.” (Life is an uphill learning curve.)

So now that I am more enlightened about infrastructure, why was I not elected? A variety of factors I am labeling a, b, c, etc. and you can rearrange them in numerical order of 1, 2, 3, 4-priority as you yourself see fit: 

a)     Cascade is older and more conservative than it was previously. A History professor I had in a U. of Wisconsin course assured me that this was going to happen to the U.S. at large and indeed, the whole country has become more conservative—witness our governor—it’s a little like dementia, I guess. Just happens.

b)      b) I am more socialist. For the simple reason that I spent 5 years in Germany and saw how the Communist and Green parties there kept the capitalists from walking  off with everything. Like as not, you would be too, if you had that experience.

c)       C) This country thinks of itself as a democracy, we routinely vote for local, state and national royalty, the Kennedys, the Gehls and Hoschs.

d)    d) Women are far less likely to be elected, appointed, etc. to anything. I eventually resigned when I couldn’t get a job locally:  the principal of a school told me point blank: “You are well-qualified for this position, but I can’t consider hiring you because that newspaper you published was too controversial…”

I went home and applied for a job teaching English in Changwon, So. Korea and left the U.S. for two years the following month.