If you live in the City of Hollister, do you know what city
district you’re in?
If you live in the City of Hollister, do you know what city district you’re in?
A few years ago I wanted to know which district we lived in so I asked the neighbors. One said District 1, another said District 3.
Confused, I went to the county Library on Fifth Street. The reference librarian had a bit of trouble finding the information, but eventually gave me a photocopied map that was too small and blurry to read and lacked street names.
Finally I hit on the brilliant strategy of going to the city offices and asking. Our capable and efficient city clerk, Geri Johnson, confidently informed me that we live in District 1. Part of the confusion is that the boundary between the two districts runs down the middle of our street. So our neighbors across the street are in a different district.
Do you know if your City Council member is up for re-election this November?
What? There’s an election this November?
Maybe I’m too pessimistic, especially with campaign signs cropping up everywhere, in thinking a lot of us are oblivious to political events until they’re right in front of our noses.
But, I cannot tell a lie. When a neighbor called me several weeks ago to ask if I’d be interested in running for City Council, I was not aware that the filing deadline was coming up that Friday. It so happens I’m not interested, and the position that’s open is for the district across the street anyway.
But I felt abashed at not knowing when the filing deadline was, mainly because I realized how much more I’m not aware of: who is running, city and county; what the issues are; what the stakes are.
The good news is, there’s still time to find out.
The League of Women Voters has a Web site called www.smartvoter.org/ca that gives information on all the statewide contests, including the dozen-plus propositions that have been receiving a lot of airtime on TV already.
For anybody who actually looks up this information, there’s enough to keep you busy until local election data is available all in one place, on sample ballots or in the papers.
As recent debate on the sewer proposal and rate hike has shown, people are willing to get involved, even when the issues are complicated and somewhat technical and information is hard to find and understand.
This issue grabs us because it’s going to cost us money and because it’s been unsolved for a frustratingly long time.
A lot of issues don’t hit quite so close to home, and it’s hard to focus on more than one complicated issue at a time.
But we’ve got to keep paying attention, keep reading the boring text of propositions, keep making sure we know what district we’re in. If we don’t, I hate to think who’ll do it for us.
