{"id":228,"date":"2013-05-13T20:47:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T20:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/13\/you-cant-spin-these-dismal-numbers"},"modified":"2013-05-13T20:47:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T20:47:00","slug":"you-cant-spin-these-dismal-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=228","title":{"rendered":"You can\u2019t spin these dismal numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve known Paul Harpole for quite a few years, long before he became a city commissioner and mayor of Amarillo.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve developed great respect for him. But I cannot fathom how he can put any kind of positive spin on the hideous voter turnout in this past Saturday\u2019s municipal election.<\/p>\n

The turnout attracted 6.9 percent of the city\u2019s registered voters. Harpole was re-elected mayor with 82 percent of the vote in a two-person race, which was the only contested seat on the City Commission ballot. <\/p>\n

He told the Amarillo Globe-News\u2019s Kevin Welch, \u201cI\u2019m not pleased (with the turnout) but it\u2019s higher than some off-year elections. But it\u2019s not high enough.\u201d But it\u2019s higher than \u201csome off-year elections\u201d? That sounds a bit to me like positive spin.<\/p>\n

No, the election history in Amarillo is one of maximum apathy. It astounds me.<\/p>\n

I remember well the 1996 special election to determine whether the Amarillo Hospital District should sell Northwest Texas Hospital to a private health-care provider. That measure drew 22 percent of the district\u2019s registered voters. Four out of five voters sat that one out. But judging by the reaction of local officials to that turnout, you\u2019d have thought the city had experienced a smashing breakthrough in civic involvement.<\/p>\n

In 2011, with three open seats on the commission, including the mayor\u2019s seat, turnout was about 15 percent. <\/p>\n

Single-digit turnouts for municipal and other local elections are not cause for any kind of positive spin.<\/p>\n

Harpole indicated that people must be satisfied with the job commission members are doing. That\u2019s a valid point. But why don\u2019t people turn out to affirm the job their public officials are doing on their behalf? That seems to be the question of the day.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m running out of ways to say this, but local elections have more of a direct impact on people\u2019s lives than state and national elections. City commissioners set tax rates that property owners have to pay. They determine the level of public service that people receive directly.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s critical that the public takes part in determining who serves on our behalf. Ninety-four percent of the city\u2019s registered voters decided they didn\u2019t care. What\u2019s worse, the number of non-voters grows even more when you measure it against those who eligible<\/em> to vote but who haven\u2019t even bothered to register.<\/p>\n

Pathetic.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve known Paul Harpole for quite a few years, long before he became a city commissioner and mayor of Amarillo. And I\u2019ve developed great respect for him. But I cannot fathom how he can put any kind of positive spin on the hideous voter turnout in this past Saturday\u2019s municipal election. The turnout attracted 6.9 … Continue reading You can\u2019t spin these dismal numbers<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}