Soapbox: Priorities for all April elections: jobs, crime, budgets

Several seats for public office are up for election this spring. From the Boone Hospital Board of Trustees to the Columbia School Board and the Columbia City Council, voters have the opportunity to voice their opinions at the ballot box. No other word best describes each race than priorities.
What are the priorities? What are the top three issues for each race? Is there a common thread among them? Simply put, the answers are all the same: Jobs, crime and budgets are the priorities.
These are the top three, and the common thread is obvious. The budget projections of each entity noted above are all similar — grim. Budgets are grim because of the job losses in our community and the concomitant belt tightening that each of us participates in during such economic cycles.
Jobs and budgets are interconnected. Only consumer confidence will solve each of these problems. Finally, crime is a symptom of misplaced priorities, a benevolent arrogance that is pathological in nature and an abdication of personal responsibility that strips an individual of dignity and conscience.
The debate in this election cycle is clear, crisp and well-defined. The BHC Board of Trustees offers the most encouragement in regard to well-managed public assets. Under construction, the new patient tower is several million dollars under budget, and the bulk of the project is being performed by local trade workers. Barbara Weaver has earned another term and is to be congratulated for a job well done. She, along with mayoral candidate Dr. Bob McDavid and the rest of the board, has demonstrated strong and thoughtful leadership.
Our local school board has been on a steep learning curve after a severe repudiation by voter rejection of the last request for an operating levy increase.
Jan Mees, the current school board president, does not shy away from that lesson but honestly admits to the harshness of its reality. She declares, “We got the message.” It’s certainly not a pleasant exercise for a veteran educator. I believe her and therefore recommend she be reelected to another term.
Jim Whitt is the single most energizing, refreshing and confidence-building candidate in the pool. He exudes the financial and personal responsibility that rarely shows its face in school board deliberations, and he deserves our vote.
After choosing these folks for the two open full terms, one has a difficult choice between Phil Peters and Jonathan Sessions. In this case I am going to choose youth and vigor. Sessions is lively, not prone to group think and can raise money. The large sum he has raised for this race is certainly impressive and hopefully bodes well for the school district.
In the City Council races, the priorities noted above are what they’re all about. Balance should also be a major factor for one to consider. The current complexion of the City Council is skewed toward the academic elite who believe that another study, more data and a conference out of state hold the answers to the dilemmas we face.
Each ward race and the mayor’s race offers clear ideological differences for voters to choose from. The question a voter must answer is simply: What should be the focus of our attention? Chicken-coop design standards? Council slush-fund balances? More studies? Hiring another consultant?
Placed in these terms, pragmatism, prudence and frugality carry the day. We need council members who do not believe that we are their laboratory mice, that construction jobs are inconsequential and that the perception of crime is a statistical irrelevance.
No one better fits the leadership needs of our city than individuals who have looked into the eyes of someone who is about to be laid off from his or her job or had his or her hours truncated. These candidates have witnessed the heartbreak of those who purchase gasoline $2 to $3 at a time. They fear not the beast of vocal minorities.
In the realm of constricted budgets, the academic elite offers little in terms of on-the-street solutions. Smart growth, sustainability and pednets are buzz words for the new-fangled elitism that shuffles power from voters to the enlightened few. People are reduced to statistics, study and analysis. As such, we are robbed and deprived of our humanity. The pendulum has swung to the extreme opposite of those who have spent lifetimes and invested dearly in our community.
Choose McDavid for mayor, Darrell Dudley for 4th Ward and Gary Kespohl for 3rd Ward. These folks will not be dismissive or disrespectful but focus on the priorities that we as Columbians clearly understand: job development, crime prevention and economic opportunity.
Please vote on April 6.