What a lovely day to go door-to-door, supporting William (Bill) Santos and his candidacy for The Village of Wilde Lake position on the Columbia Council.
I first met Bill through the local blogosphere. Dang! That’s a thinking man, I thought to myself. Bill doesn’t blog so frequently. But when he says something, he’s thoroughly researched the issue at hand, and his perspective and solutions are vetted through some active and sharp brain cells.
I then met Bill personally at the first salon that my girlfriend, Cherie Beck, and I hosted. Somehow Bill manages to be both open to new ideas, capable of serious assessment, able to balance multiple perspectives and then conclude decisively. It’s quite refreshing to find someone who is able to be all these things.
So, today Cherie and I — neither of us Wilde Lake Village residents — put on our super-comfy MBT shoes (get yourself a pair if you don’t have some already) and hiked the hills of Green Mountain Circle, placing Bill’s campaign material on door after door. If you live, by chance, on Midsummer Lane, Evening Wind, Rain Dream Hill, Rivulet Row or that neck of the woods, you might have seen two ladies weaving through your neighborhood earlier today. That was us.
Hey, even if you don’t agree with Bill’s perspective and don’t care to support his candidacy, I believe his blog posts are an invaluable contribution to Howard County citizen’s knowledge about hyper-local issues.
11 Comments
April 1, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Are the MBT shoes really worth over $200? My feet always hurt, so I’m always looking for comfortable shoes. The best I’ve found so far are New Balance.
April 2, 2007 at 12:41 am
Absolutely, Young at Heart. MBT shoes are worth every penny because they really do deliver what they promise. I could go on and on about them. Yes, yes, yes. Get a pair. I have four pairs; plus one camping-hiking-gardening pair, and my best friend got a pair for her birthday last year.
They really are funny looking. I often leave the house wearing a kind of strange outfit: a bit hip, a bit conservative and wearing these odd, rocker-boat shoes! But really, they are worth every penny. Treat them like workout equipment in the beginning, not like a regular pair of shoes. You’ll have to build your strength with them, as new (oft-forgotten) muscles will be reactivated.
April 3, 2007 at 2:53 am
Thanks. I’ll have to give them a try.
April 4, 2007 at 12:26 am
Jesse,
When my family first moved to Columbia we rented a house on Rain Dream Hill for a year. There were model homes at the top of the cul de sac and the mini bus went by our door regularly.
The year was 1967 (i think!). The trees are much bigger now.
Your mention of canvassing for Bill in my old hood brought back the memory.
-wb
April 4, 2007 at 4:02 am
Not from WL, but canvassing it?
Will next week’s local paper read “Opulently Shod Carpetbaggers Deploy to Sway WL CA Board Seat Election”?
Shouldn’t each village’s CA Board representation be a matter for them to politick and decide amongst themselves? Or are indigenous populations not to be trusted to inform themselves, form their own opinions, and act upon them, thus rationalizing interloping?
My guess is most people would assume candidate literature for a local elected position left on their door was placed there by a person local to that election (not from elsewhere) and infer just from that distribution some sense of local (as in intravillage) support for that candidate. Obviously, as shown here, that would be an unsafe assumption.
While noted here, was use of alien distribution resources also properly mentioned in the literature?
Just how much outside participation is ok in any race for elected office? I think I’m going to need a whole box of gray Crayolas(TM) to draw that area.
April 4, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Return To Sender,
The members of the Columbia Council affect all residents of Columbia, not just the village they are elected from.
We should applaud all those who give their time to create a better informed electorate.
April 5, 2007 at 1:55 am
It seems to me, from your post Rhett Urntosender, that your viewpoint reflects that of one from a very small circle of ‘indigenous’people.
When I let a larger world of people influence, inform and shakeup my worldview, I discovered ‘alien’ life can make for good company.
Try it…you might like it!
April 6, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Rhett,
You must not follow state or local elections. The practice of friends and colleagues coming out in support of others seeking office is common, accepted practice. What a sad world it would be if we all lived in silos as you believe we do.
If this is the only objection you have to his campaign, Mr. Santos must be one heck of a candidate.
April 7, 2007 at 4:09 pm
wb,
I do applaud all who selflessly give up their time to promote a better-informed electorate, among them the local bloggers. And, rightly I believe, part of better informing the electorate is maintaining the same standard held in much other political advertising – disclosing in the ad itself who’s underwriting the ad, part of which includes its distribution.
Good elections require adhering to the full course meal of ethical election practices and are not à la carte affairs.
cherie,
While it may seem to you that which I stated was a viewpoint belonging to a small circle of indigenous people, to me it is a viewpoint with which any particular group of people could find affinity. If a specific electorate of people are being asked to make a decision, one that will have many consequences for their specific community, for a larger community of which theirs is a part, and for interests outside of the governed area altogether, they need to weigh their decision based on all of those consequences. That other communities or interests may have dissimilar interests from their specific community, the electorate should be aware of what are local voices and what are external voices and properly weigh their decisions accordingly.
I have tried ‘alien’ life and I do agree hearing a plurality a viewpoints makes for much better enlightenment.
Frank (touché),
I do follow state and local elections, as well as neighborhood, village, community, federal, and international ones. I hope you are aware that some elections (not CA’s) do prohibit participation by outside interests. I believe our federal elections do not permit foreign contributions. Why do you think that is? Does that make the U.S. a silo? Do you believe foreign participation in our national elections should be an “accepted practice”?
If we’re now on to the topic of Mr. Santos’ campaign in general, to stay current I will say that I found one Flier quote of Mr. Santos this week possibly misleading. I’m not saying it was purposeful and I don’t know if he was even quoted correctly, but the Flier quoted him as saying: “Last year, almost half of the village voted for me, and I felt it was my duty to run again.”
Taken literally, that would assert that Mr. Santos received thousands of votes as Wilde Lake’s population is several thousand people. Yet, the same Flier article says Mr. Santos actually received only 166 votes. I feel comfortable pointing this out because I know Mr. Santos is well capable of conveying his take on matters very concisely. In this case, the statement was left open to interpretation, in my opinion, in Mr. Santos’ favor.
It would have been more literally accurate for Mr. Santos to say any of the following:
“Almost the entire village didn’t vote.”
“Almost the entire village didn’t vote for me (or my opponent).”
“My opponent received 20% more votes than I did.”
“I received 45% of the vote.”
“My opponent only received 34 more votes than I did.”
With that low a voter turnout, meaning just a few votes could determine the outcome, doesn’t it seem relevant to ask just how much outside involvement there should be in a village election and to promote disclosure when outside involvement occurs?
April 7, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Postal delivery for Mary: chill.
Or better yet: start your own blog. You can hire me to show you how. Then your fees can help me pay for the “Hula Hoopers for Ian Kennedy” fliers I just had printed. I did disclose the source of the flier production, but, frankly, darlin’, I considered that gentle marketing for my blog and was delighted for the opportunity to do so.
April 12, 2007 at 2:27 am
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