Idaho Falls Mayoral Race, Pt. 4 - My decision
Alright, so finishing off my mayoral race posts here is my decision on who I'm voting for. You can go back to Part 1, Part 2 - Jeff Alldridge, and Part 3 - Lisa Burtenshaw if you need to catch up. So without any more pageantry, I am going to vote for Jeff Alldridge, and here's why.
Answers
First off, Jeff's answers were just more real and contained more defined actions he would pursue when I asked for those. The majority of Lisa's answers could have been generated by a cardboard cutout of talking points and local politicking without actually saying anything. Also, in a follow up chat with Jeff we had some significant agreement between what I thought and what he thought.
The status quo
So, some of you may recall I started a side business this year where I focus on helping governments and government organizations become more usable and accessible to their citizenry. As a part of that I did some initial market research with some folks in government around here (thanks Sean!) and generally received positive feedback on the idea. However, what was interesting was the silence I received from every member of city government I reached out to. Every city council member and the mayor's office didn't respond to me at all. That's not very "pro-business" and don't tell me they are busy because they absolutely aren't. This is East Idaho, not NYC. So with that said I will not be voting for anyone who currently holds a seat.
In addition, the status quo, quite frankly, is dogshit. Our roads are more potholes than road or more accurately can be described as a motocross rhythm section. We still don't have enough police officers, Our landscape is dotted by car washes. We have a gigantic dirt pile by Ryder Park that serves as a private business' winter extortion ring. And we haven't had a new park or amenity built in 15 years, aside from the Reinhart splash pad. Which, like most things the city does, is nice but not big enough to really be that useful. So, I particularly want a change.
I take the nonpartisan nature of our local elections seriously
But Jeff is a radical conservative! Maybe he is. I actually asked him about that and ultimately he gave a very reasonable answer. I'm paraphrasing, but basically, that while him and I would almost certainly vote differently for state reps or federal offices, city politics are not partisan. There are not Republican or Democrat roads or parks or power lines. Our local government is nonpartisan because our local civic services are nonpartisan. I take that very seriously.
Also, am I missing something here or aren't Lisa and Christian registered Republicans too? Are they the "good" Republicans or something? Of the responses I got from Lisa and Jeff I can say unequivocally the most radically conservative views I got were from Lisa. Not Jeff. Also, if we don't vote for conservatives then I guess we vote for no one, to loosely quote Jim Gordon in The Dark Knight.
Well, I hope this series has been helpful. I know its late in the season and many have voted but I was delayed in getting these out. Hopefully, the next one will be a bit quicker. If you've enjoyed this consider subscribing so you get my rantings delivered directly to you almost as if I was standing behind you reading it to you.
