FRANKLIN COUNTY – Can a free people govern themselves?
That was the great experiment launched by our Founding Fathers. There were a lot of skeptics, but they took steps to help succeed. Part of that effort, which carries through to this day in many states, especially in Pennsylvania, involved keeping government close to citizens.
There were several ways to do this. In the beginning there were only four federal functions: foreign affairs, common defense, treasury and justice. In the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, everything else was to be done at state level or lower, or simply exercised by individuals.
You exercise your share of self government in a lot of ways. First among those is by voting for people to represent you. That is nowhere more important than in the votes that affect you right where you live.
There is perhaps no place on earth, in a country as large as the United States, and in a state as large as Pennsylvania, that puts critical government functions so close to where you live. With only a few exceptions, the state is organized into counties, townships and boroughs. If you’re in our LocalNews1.org coverage area, you likely live in one or the other.
So what are the functions those nearby municipalities provide? Excluding the county, the list is not as long as you might think, but they are critical.
- For boroughs and townships it includes providing water and sewage, roads and bridges, fire and emergency medical services and varying levels of policing, parks and recreation and others.
- Local school districts determine how we educate our children.
- In some municipalities there is also zoning intended to regulate land use so that, among other things, one does not find chicken or hog farms popping up in residential areas.
- There are also local courts to help solve occasional differences of opinion about how we live peacefully and prosperously with each other.
In our primary LocalNews1.org Pennsylvania coverage area alone there are 11 municipalities – Franklin County, four townships and six boroughs. There are also four school districts of interest in Chambersburg, Fairfield, Greencastle and Waynesboro.
This primary election is your first chance to decide who will represent you.
- Will they take steps to see that a fire department will respond at your home?
- Is your water clean?
- If you need an ambulance, will there be one that can respond quickly?
- Will they make sure roads around your home are in good repair, and snow is removed in winter?
- Will your children receive a basic education suitable to living in the United States?
- Will your property and belongings be protected in the courts?
The nice thing about local government is that for the most part the people you elect are neighbors. They live where you live. Their children go to school with your children. You may attend the same churches and get the same messages about what is moral and right. These are reassuring thoughts.
None of this is any guarantee the people running for office actually know what their duties will be or how to exercise the authority they’ll be elected to use.
Within recent memory some local elected officials were indicted for fraud. Some run to have a podium from which to lecture or to act as a stepping stone to higher office. Others prefer not to exercise their authority, depending on municipal employees to determine what is or is not to be done. Still others bring peculiar notions with them that are actually harmful to communities of adults and children alike.
There is only one thing all elected officials have in common. If elected, whether you voted or not, they were elected by you.
So how important is it to show up to vote in local elections? Well, you can’t hit a ball unless you can see the pitch and swing the bat. The candidates are all there to see. Whether you swing or not, the result is still on YOU.
