It’s the month of May, and, as normally happens this time of year, all eyes in town are turning to the school board race. Unfortunately the matter of the budget vote is fairly uninteresting, as it seems the increase is too small for anyone to raise any real objection (long live the TV studio); in any event, the race for school board is many times more exciting for the spectator, and certainly for the underachieving blogger. Indeed, it makes me feel as though I’m still in high school (which I am, but let not this minor detail distort my point).
Last year’s race was fairly interesting: the board’s minority faction seemed to be at or around its peak in notoriety, and with Walsh being regularly lambasted by the local press it seemed, at least for a little while, as if the tide was about to turn. That didn’t happen, and it seemed when it didn’t happen that the minority had fallen for good. Then this year came around.
Board candidates Treyz and Owen, notable for their membership in the critically-acclaimed “Sunshine Group,” have been attracting much of the attention of last year’s minority freedom-fighter Meyer. Normally I, being the bright and happy person I am, am a great fan of sunshine and enlightenment. Normally I, being the rebellious and contrary teenager I am, am a great fan of resistance and revolution. Normally I, being the schadenfreude-enjoying person I am, am a great fan of the public mockery and figurative effigy-burning of public officials much deserving of such berating. Yet, there’s something about the Sunshine Group that just doesn’t sit quite well with me.
Maybe it’s got something to do with this. And it’s not necessarily the video itself per se; there are certainly enough foot-in-mouth moments deserving of public scrutiny that have gone unseen by the public at large, largely for reasons of indifference and disinterest. I certainly don’t oppose, unlike others, the fact that an enterprising citizen spent her own time putting together such a video for public consumption—these are, after all, public meetings, and anyone so inclined to respond in kind is, of course, more than welcome to do so.
Yet, it is the tone of things that does seem to concern me. Funny as it is, there’s an unmistakably high school (or younger)-ish vibe that I get from the video, at least given the knowledge that it’s being used as a campaign tool. Perhaps not explicitly so—I’m not sure how much the Sunshiners are actually playing this up—but certainly implicitly so—one of their candidates posted it. And the cornerstone of their entire campaign has been to assert that there have been flaws in the BOE in recent years, and that these problems need to be addressed.
Except, that doesn’t really sound like it’s what they’re saying. There is no real hint at any sort of “solution” anywhere in the video, nor anywhere else in their broader campaign. Certainly it’s a campaign against those who are in power, but for what? Last year’s elections called into question the handling of sensitive financial matters and other professional oversights by those in power; those who composed the minority were clear in their desire to find any other flaws and correct those that were already there, because the people who were in power hadn’t been doing that. This year the Sunshiners seem to have all the vigor of last year’s minority but with none of their purpose.
Instead of sounding like a group with a passion for fixing clear problems, the Sunshiners are stuck in a position where all they have are attempts at character assassinations. And that’s unfortunate—not necessarily because character assassination itself is bad, but because it’s a really bad way to address legitimate problems. BOE President erroneously going on the Today show as the voice of the district? Bad idea. BOE leadership regularly showing bad faith and misleading the public on matters that should be open? Bad idea. Most of the other things that showed up in that video on YouTube? Bad ideas. But turning the entire campaign into a playground-style rash of ad hominem attacks is a worse idea, and it obscures any legitimate points that might be made in the process.
Seems that the Sunshine’s a little too bright around here. It’s kind of a shame, too, because I’m not even sure how big a fan I am of the alternatives (or would be, at least, if I could vote).
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