On Saturday the KosKats met at a local BBQ place to talk about the local election. Early voting has been going on for a bit but the big day is this Thursday the 6th.
I wanted to know what others thought of the candidates and the issues. I was confused by some of the amendments on the ballot. See my previous diary here.
It was a great meet-up. We had 6 really engaged people show up.
L-R: Anonymous L, Anonymous M, Patrick is Lucky, Zen Trainer's water, Jon Sitzman, Al Fondy
The local alternative sort of paper had just printed a special edition about the election and we perused that and the ton of fliers I had gotten in the mail. I had my sample ballot with me too.
Best for me though was the personal input. Patrick is Lucky talked of his personal experience with a few candidates. He actually switched my vote on one of the council members at large.
There was one candidate that I was leaning toward. Anonymous M’s comments on him pushed me over to his side completely.
I really appreciated Anonymous L’s quiet and well thought out input. He worded things so much better than I can.
Al Fondy talks to us about charter schools and the teachers union.
Al Fondy was a wonder, especially since we were all late and he waited for us. His quiet input changed more minds than just mine I think. The problem I had with his candidate was the HUGE amounts of money he has spent on the campaign.
All my friends have gotten onto me about that though. That’s the way politics are played now sadly, you’re not going to win without spending money. It did make me wonder driving home if a city or state could have campaign finance reform. Can we have publicly funded elections at the local level without waiting for the Federal Government to do so? Hmm…
And of course we discussed the #BLM protests at NN.
Luckily Jon Sitzman used a combination of Roberts Rules of Order, Active Listening and Reflection to keep the discourse civil. He would elegantly gesture to me to shut up while encouraging others to speak and reflecting back to them what he understood them to have said. (Oddly he did not reflect back or re phrase anything I said. Maybe that’s not possible when I use short declarative statements like “Fuck that!”)
He kept the conversation on course; on our local election.
We're not really as despondent here as we look. Just trying to listen to an interview with a candidate on a phone in a bar with 2 TV's and a stereo going.
I left “fired up and ready to go”. I haven’t been this excited about a local election in a long time. Thank you KosKats! I can’t wait till our next meet-up.