I would like to address our March 1 local elections. I listen to city council meetings regularly and rarely make it through to adjournment, due to the lack of productivity.
I am not trying to single out any person or administration. I have been doing this for over 20 years.
What I hear is more bickering between representatives, for personal or perceived personal slights, than there is giving an honest effort on behalf of the public to better our collective lives, with the limited resources we have.
When a politician comes to your door or you listen to them in public, try this simple test:
Are they putting forth projects that will benefit the citizenry as a whole?
Do they have a “features to benefits” argument why their project should utilize scarce resources available to the citizenry?
Is their project practical to execute?
My belief is city council meetings would be much more productive if positions and ideas were discussed and prioritized.
What not to do: cast a vote for any candidate who makes their argument by factional allegiance or by belittling their opponent, trying to self-promote or creating ill will.
Cast your precious vote for the candidate who has ideas and plans to make our city a better place to live, work, raise our families and pray. And let us hold their feet to the fire for what they argued for and their ability to translate that idea into a product for us to evaluate.
I enjoy thinking about discussions that are directed toward moving the ball forward in a fixed time frame and within a fixed budget.
How about voting fore those individuals who are focused on improving our property values, making people want to move into our neighborhoods, put their children in our schools and buy our houses and shop at our establishments.
Richard Beaudoin
Los Alamos
(Mr. Beaudoin is a former Española planning commissioner and owns a PPE cleaning business in Española.)