Elections are contests and when they’re over we often breathe a sigh of relief only to be met by yet another contest - interpreting the voting results.
The results of the May 4 elections in Taylor, however, are so consistent and so overwhelming there’s less room for interpretive squabbling.
Voters turned out in record numbers and favored by very large margins ballot propositions and candidates offering a new direction for the City Council.
Considered individually, each of the propositions may seem minor. Understood together, they represent the people of Taylor reining in a council perceived to be taking too many liberties and showing too little deference to the people they’re supposed to serve.
You can see evidence in the specifics of the City Charter amendments: No more retreats to resorts on taxpayer money, no more parliamentary gamesmanship to bypass public input and enact an ordinance on the same day it’s proposed, no more choosing the mayor themselves or voting on their own pay raises.
You can also see it in the campaigns of the newly elected council members who ran on themes of leadership that listens and puts residents first.
Observers, especially from outside Taylor, have wondered why people are so stirred up in a time of unprecedented economic expansion in the town. The answer is not what some may think. None of this is about “Old Taylor” vs.
“New Taylor.” There were lifelong Taylorites working together with newer residents in all of the campaigns.
One longtime resident was not reelected while in the other district a born-and-raised Taylorite was chosen with over 90% of the vote. Evidently, how long we’ve lived here is not the dividing line in our disagreements about the future of Taylor. Thus, one consequence of election day is that we can finally bury the wornout “New Taylor vs.
Old Taylor” trope.
It simply doesn’t describe our town’s politics in any way that’s accurate or meaningful.
Second, some have argued the way to understand the controversy is to view it as a fight between going forward or going backward. That, too, is mistaken, not to mention condescending - another trope that needs to die and be buried.
Dismissing the concerns of neighbors as mere backward thinking, as opposed to one’s own enlightenment, is self-flattering, not to mention simply wrong. We are all neighbors here, and our neighbors have legitimate concerns about the direction Taylor is taking.
It’s not “backward” to insist on residents’ input for council compensation and general responsiveness to the electorate from government on matters ranging from tax rates to age-appropriate materials in the public library.
So what’s really going on, then?
I have studied and worked in politics for over 25 years (I’m a professor of political science), and that long experience teaches me democracy often selfcorrects. Candidates and campaigns treating voters with disdain do not win elections.
When the public loses trust in elected officials, voters will give someone new a chance.
All the ballot propositions and the district council elections converge on this fundamental reality about Taylor right now: trust between the people of Taylor and our elected city officials has been breached.
That’s what best explains record-high turnout and the large margins for the charter changes, the repeal referendum and the two district council elections. Restoration of that trust should be the highest priority for the new council.
Candidates and campaigns treating voters with disdain do not win elections.'
