Over at The Stoney Creek News...

This week's Stoney Creek News has a solid editorial I highly recommend you read, 'Voters send another mayor off the plank'. Mark deals with several different election-related issues, including a general overview, the endorsement policy of the Hamilton Community News regarding candidates, and finally, voter turnout. I like what he wrote, except for the conclusion he comes to here:

"We have to look at new ways to target voter apathy. Almost every municipality in Ontario has tested alternative voting methods, from mail-in ballots to online voting.

This is the only way we will ever see an increase in turnout for local elections."

Naturally, I disagree.

Alternative voting methods being the answer to poor turnout assumes that people aren't voting because of 'inconvenience'. I think this is a fallacious assumption. This isn't like cutting down on littering by providing more trash cans. But even if it were, I'm not so sure that if we could find the ultimate form of secure, hassle-free voting that we'd have votes being cast as a result of informed, qualified opinions having been created. What would probably result would reflect the ease of execution and nothing more.

In fact, I'll take this one step further, and say that just as Facebook and Twitter and cell phone use have made us erroneously believe that our levels of intimacy have risen (they haven't; the only solid conclusion you can draw from an increase in the instances of communication is...that there's been an increase in the instances of communication), that more profound depths of engagement between people are the norm, easier voting options wouldn't accomplish anything worth being proud of, other than raising the turnout level of casually-fashioned votes.

But I am intrigued by this statement:

"Our job over the next four years will be to continue and educate the public about why the municipal level of government is so important, and why people should vote."

It sounds like Mark is committing Metroland to being proactive about changing the landscape, affecting some change where attitudes regarding local governance is concerned. This is heartening, even before I hear the details.

In the next while, I'll hopefully be presenting a proposal to Ward 9, 10 and 11 Councillors Brad Clark, Maria Pearson and Brenda Johnson as well as the Stoney Creek News, the Stoney Creek Chamber of Commerce, the Stoney Creek Downtown BIA as well as some foundation community groups. My intent will be to get them on board with a multi-faceted initiative, one designed to begin addressing how we can increase the relationship of engagement between Stoney Creek residents and their Councillors. The ultimate goal of this initiative? Nothing less than beginning the creation of a far more functional and resilient environment in which all citizens can contribute towards a greater quality of Life by way of local governance.