Elections

Low voter turnout is always discouraging. It speaks of disengagement and disenchantment. It is a demoralizing commentary on democracy. But what do you do when even the candidates don’t come out?

One of the recent threads raised the issue of the unsustainable increases in taxes that Chapel Hill citizens are faced with.  I'd be interested in knowing what services/benefits citizens (this includes Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County) would be willing do do without in order to minimize tax increases or to even decrease taxes.  Would you be willing to have trash picked up every two weeks instead of weekly?  Would you be willing to have recycling every other week as well?  What about schools?  Would you be willing to have larger class sizes and/or fewer teachers?  How about fire/police protection?  Would you be willing to have fewer police and fire persons or to have fewer stations and longer response times?

Anyone who watched the Chapel Hill budget process last year knows that the Town Manager and his staff worked hard to cut the budget to the bone, in many cases leaving staff positions unfilled to make the Council-requested percentage cuts.  Although I don't believe public safety was jepoardized by these cuts it is hard (for me, at least) to see where any future cuts might come from.

The Daily Tar Heel is planning on making a voter guide to be published on early voting day -- a page that Orange County voters can take with them to the polls from Oct. 15 until Election Day. We're envisioning a chart that you can use to match Chapel Hill and Carrboro candidates with their plans for addressing issues that are important to you, so you can compare them.

We've made a list of issues that we think concern those candidates. Some are more for Carrboro, some are more for Chapel Hill:

I want this guide to be as useful for voters as possible. What would your list look like? What are we misisng?