Throwing Grenades From the Sideline

by Michael J Badagliacco, “MJB”

Elective office is a lightning rod. Anyone who has held one knows that it is expected. What is problematic is the person who throws grenades but refuses to actually step onto the field. They will not put their name on the petition; open their life to the same scrutiny  they demand of everyone else that is running for office requires. They want to make a stink but still avoid the scrutiny.

That is not the same thing as speaking up. Speaking up is a right. I used it. For a couple of years before I ran for Council, I wrote letters to the editor on a steady basis. One of the first pieces I wrote after coming home to Montrose, if not the first, was about stepping up and getting involved instead of only complaining about what you think is wrong. I still believe that. A letter, a comment at a meeting, a hard question in public: those are part of how a town works. They are not a substitute for standing for the job.

Not everyone can run

Plenty of people cannot take the seat, and I am not talking about them. Young children at home. A job that will not bend. Health. Care for a parent. Those are real limits. I have them too. I keep a full-time job along with the work of Mayor and Council. I write several articles a week on things I care about. I look after my mother, who is nearly 85. It is a juggling act that runs close to twenty hours a day, seven days a week. I do not offer that as a medal. I offer it as proof that the calendar is tight for more people than the critics like to admit.

Service is still the point. Self-government was not designed as a spectator sport. The founders built a republic that runs on people willing to take a turn, not on a permanent audience. If you can serve and you will not, the complaint loses some of its weight.

Read the page, not the rumor

True engagement starts before any of that. It starts with reading the proposal the elected people actually put in front of you. The Charter text. The redline. The ballot question. Not the summary from the committee that already hates it, and not the summary from the side that already loves it.

Confirmation bias is a quiet habit. You hear a name you dislike, and the idea attached to that name is guilty before you have read a word. Or you hear a name you trust, and you stop checking. Either way, you are not deciding the issue, someone else is.

Ask yourself the plain question. Are you voting against this because you have read it and you are against what it does? Or are you voting against it because you were told the person who presented it was evil? Those are different votes. One is about the measure. The other is about the grudge. Only one of them is self-government.

Read the current proposed language. Sit with it long enough to know why your mark is going where it is going. Listening to a biased point of view and calling it research is not.

Committees of the unelected

What I notice is how many of the people heading “committees” that keep popping up in town will not do the one thing that would test their case: run for office. It brings to mind the old argument sketch from Monty Python where the point is the fight. The substance can wait or never arrive. A legitimate committee can do useful work. It can study a question, gather signatures, or put a real alternative in front of voters. What it cannot do is claim the moral high ground over people who were legitimately elected and now answer to the voters, while its own leaders stay off the ballot avoiding any real scrutiny.

Say it, then stand for it



I am not asking every critic to quit their job or leave a child to run for Council. However, if you have the time and the health to serve, and your main work is telling the people who were elected they are failing the town, consider running for office.

If you cannot run, then argue the issue. Bring a fact, a better sentence for the Charter, a better number for the budget. And before you mark the ballot, read the context, understand the why.  That is useful.  Throwing grenades because someone told you to hate the hand that wrote it, is not.

We do not need more noise.
We need more people willing to read and understand the issues and candidates and then VOTE!