Vote local

Forgive us for turning an old saw here, but this is election season and we feel compelled as people who pay attention to once again encourage our neighbors to vote.

It is a truism when discussing elections that national races draw more attention than local ones, with the highest turnout always during a presidential election year. While we may be tilting at windmills when we urge for a change in that dynamic, it’s true that it makes little sense.

Forgive us for being cynical, but is there anything that is more of a foregone conclusion in Alaska than a presidential election? We recall, as of course everyone else does, a bit of wishful thinking on the part of the first Obama campaign that mused about Alaska being a possible purple state.

There’s a reason that was met with scoffs here.

What’s not a foregone conclusion are the local elections. Races here surprise us all the time. So just from a pure entertainment perspective, the horse race part of local politics should win over voters.

But it’s also much more important.

We could spend all day listing ways local races impact us every day. Our kids are affected when the school board makes a decision about policy. They get to go to new schools because voters decide to build them.

The Mat-Su Borough also sets property tax rates, and the homeowners among us pay those every year.

Even little things have daily impacts. A recent visitor to our offices brought up culverts. Pipes running under a road are both invisible and incredibly boring. For years, the borough was approving money to improve these culverts without a mention from us until very recently.

But those little pipes seem to be having an impact on fishing — and fishing is big business. You might not catch fish, but your neighbor does, and he buys newspapers and haircuts and sandwiches — all things he won’t be able to afford if there aren’t fish in the streams.

The borough also has hands in local projects, putting people to work building rail spurs and prisons and barge docks. Those people, in turn, spend their money here.

Honestly, can you name the last time something the president did that had that kind of impact on your daily life?

We would suggest that’s particularly true now. We live in a country governed by a Congress mostly notable for its seeming inability to get even small things accomplished.

But the borough does stuff all the time. The tower that went up next to your friend’s house? The borough cleared the way. That road project tearing up an intersection making you late to work? It’s a good bet some local government had a hand in it.

In the end, we guess our advice is this: vote in every election you can, and vote local.