As usual this time of year, there is an upcoming election. The actual vote will be held Tuesday November 7th, 2017. For those who also live in Honeoye Falls, the polling station is the Mendon Community Center, formerly known as the Legion Hall.
As it’s not a Presidential, or any national offices that I can tell, publications are fewer then normal. What information I have says it is mostly incumbents, with competition at the Town board, and Constitutional questions on the side.
Gallagher (State Supreme Court Justice), Nesser (Family Court Judge), Moffitt (Town Supervisor), Merzke (Town Clerk), Smith (Highway Superintendent), and Briggs (Town Justice) all look to be running unopposed as incumbents. Not much to say here. Would be nice to have more people running, but the outcome should be pretty clear.
O’Flynn and Baxter are competing for the position of Sheriff. Kehaley-Corr, Hagreen, Daniele, and Carroll are competing for two Town Council positions. If your in the geographic footprint you’ve likely received fliers already. Good starting point, but might want to take the time to do additional research. Or follow party lines, flip a coin, whatever method you use to select a candidate.
Which leaves the more controversial issue of the State Constitution. There appear to be two constitutional amendments up for a vote, as well as a Constitutional Convention. Worth noting that this is the State Constitution only, not Federal.
Per the State Constitution, the question of having a Constitutional Convention must be periodically posed to the public. Now is that time. While there are a variety of pros/cons to this, I think it can be summed up with a simple question: Are you generally happy with our State government? If you are, vote no. If you aren’t, vote yes. I’ll probably vote yes here, but I’ll need to ponder it some more first.
The biggest reason I would vote against a Convention is the potential waste of resources in holding the convention, combined with it dividing our focus. Not what I would consider a big negative, but that is the downside as I see it. I’ve heard others complain about possible ‘crazy’ amendments, but that doesn’t worry me. Any potential amendments would have to go before the public to be approved (see two examples further down).
Oddly enough, it’s some of the potential ‘crazy’ amendments that have me most inclined to vote in favor here. The idea that government pensions could be changed (Article V, 7) appears to terrify public unions. As I am against public pensions, as a general policy, this encourages me to vote in favor of a Convention.
A Convention is a bit of a gamble, but there are checks built into the system. As the last convention was in 1967, it may be time for a review. Still time to change my mind, but I’ll probably be voting Yes on a Convention.
The first proposed amendment involves pension of public officers (ie elected officials). In particular, it grants courts the option of cutting back in the pension as part of punishment for crimes committed while in office. Seems pretty reasonable to me, if you break the law you should be punish, not rewarded. And public pensions appears to be a violation of the ‘no taxation without representation’ premise our government is built upon. So I plan to vote Yes on this amendment.
The second proposed amendment involves using and preserving state forests. While this sounds like a nice enough idea, it seems like the sort of thing that doesn’t belong in a Constitution. But restrictions on usage of state forests appears to already be in the Constitution (Article XIV). This change appears to lessen those restrictions, in a very limited and reasonable manner. So I would be inclined to vote Yes on this amendment.
And those are my opinions on this upcoming election. Agree or disagree, you’ve got a week to figure out your stance on the issues.