With the General Election just a week away, the time has come for the procrastinators to cast those ballots, which must be postmarked by Nov. 8 to be counted.
At the very local level, there are many important races that will be decided. These include Washougal City Council Position No. 2, Caryn Plinski and Rod P. Morris, Position No. 4, Joyce Lindsay and Michael Delavar, Position No. 5, Niki Anderson, and Jennifer McDaniel, Position No. 7, Molly Coston and Connie Jo Freeman; Camas Mayor, Scott Higgins and Ken Kakuk; Camas City Council Ward 3, Position No. 2, Shannon Turk and Margaret Tweet; Port of Camas-Washougal Commission District No. 2, Bill Ward and Neil T. Cahoon; East County Fire and Rescue Commission Position No. 1, Kenny Cochran and Gary Larson, Position No. 4, John E. Clancy and Brooks Cooper, and Position No. 5, Thomas Gianatasio and George “Jack” Hoober.
For those who still need to make their choices, information is readily available. At www.camaspostrecord.com, there are links to the profile articles for all of the local races. There is also a link to view the only locally-focused General Election candidate forum, which was planned and carried out by the members of the Camas Youth Advisory Council. Participants included candidates for Camas mayor, Camas City Council and Port of Camas-Washougal Commissioner.
While even local elections can sometimes turn negative, the true beauty of political races in small communities like Camas and Washougal are several fold. First, as voters we often know candidates as they have been involved in different community activities, or have even bumped into them at the local grocery store. Second, for the most part it is relatively easy to contact a candidate and talk face-to-face, and those who don’t make themselves available to the public aren’t likely to fare very well when the votes are tallied. And maybe most importantly with a total of only thousands of votes cast, each and every vote truly does count.
