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Reflections on elections
Contributed by: Ed Dorsey on 11/15/2007

Whew!!!!!

Thank goodness the 2007 election season in Golden is over (or is it?). No longer will our mailboxes be stuffed with all kinds of literature from the candidates and the Voice of Golden, some good and some bad, and we won't be hearing the knocks on the door and receiving those automated phone calls.

But lest you forget, two years will go by pretty quick and we'll have local elections once again. Besides there will be a special election in March or April for the Ward 4 City Council seat vacated by Jacob Smith who was elected Mayor.

This writer has been intimately involved in this year's election as a member of the effort to re-elect Mayor Chuck Baroch. Unfortunately, Chuck lost, but is no worse for the wear, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude for his tireless work on behalf of the City during his 12 years on Council.

During the past few months of knocking on doors, attending forums and reading the tons of literature and writing some of my own, I have observed numerous election oddities, some nice and some not so nice, and would like to share them with the readers:

· The real losers in this year's election are the registered voters of Golden who never took the time to complete and return their mail ballot. Only 39 percent of the registered voters cast a ballot and that was 24 pervent less than the 2005 Ward elections and 12 percent less than the last Mayoral/District election in 2003.

· Voice of Golden Editor and Publisher Marian Olson spent over $23,000 to influence this election as a non-political committee as reported to the City under the Campaign Finance Law. She failed to get any of her endorsed candidates elected for the very first time since she began publishing newspaper during every election cycle. Maybe we Goldenites have finally turned the corner in seeing through her misstatements and inaccuracies.

· One candidate (who won) raised almost $23,000 in monetary and in-kind contributions, about two-thirds of which came from outside the city, including some heavy hitters in a major political party. (Will these same outside contributors help fight Golden's future battles?) It seems the days of elections at the grassroots level and strictly non-partisan are gone.

· Despite nine candidates in the three races, we will only see one new face on City Council in January, that of Marjorie Sloan who will replace Lynne Timpeiro. I thank Lynne for her four years of service. Although I disagreed with her many times, she is a kind and caring lady.

· There will be another new face come Spring 2008 as the result of a Special Election for the two years remaining on Mayor-Elect Smith's Council seat. He replaces Chuck Baroch who lost his bid for re-election. Jacob claims he will be a new, innovative and assertive leader who will get things done. It will be interesting to see how Jacob will fulfill his campaign promises.

· I've saved the worst for last. The Voice of Golden (VOG) was downright nasty this year attacking those candidates it did not support and praising those it did. That in itself is fine with me, but they did it with plenty of misstatements and inaccuracies and tried to scare residents in a section of the City into supporting their candidates.

Even the City had to send out a notice to these residents that what they were being told by the VOG simply wasn't true. I applaud candidates Baroch, Oxman and Timpeiro, the Golden Wire and the Golden Good Government league for their efforts in rebutting the bad news of the VOG. The other candidates were not heard from so I can only assume they ignored the VOG as a campaign strategy and hopefully will defend the City in the future. I believe the rebuttals were a major reason none of Ms. Olson's candidates won.

· The pre-election issue of the Golden Transcript resembled the VOG with its unnecessary and offensive remarks about Mayor Baroch. It is normal for newspapers to endorse one candidate over another but it is not normal for them to attack those they don't endorse. Shame on them.

· None of the candidates for Mayor received a clear mandate from the voters. It was a close race and once again shows how divided the voters are. It will take a very dedicated, informed and knowledgeable Council to take our City into the future.

Well, it was a hectic and chaotic election this year but all came out well except for the fact that we lost Chuck Baroch from City Council when we could have had both Jacob and he serving together.

(I apologize for my bias, but geez, I could have said the day after the election, the market was down 361 points...just kidding!). But like life, government goes on and there are plenty of issues facing City Council in 2008. I wish all six of them (and the seventh when he/she comes aboard) the best and urge them to keep the Ship of Golden on a steady course without major directional changes to either the right or left.



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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Ed Dorsey

Golden , CO

Ed Dorsey has posted 40 stories and 3 comments since joining on 2/21/2007. Ed Dorsey 's average story rating is 5.
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