Thank You Plainfield Voters

My post election thoughts:

I thank my supporters from the bottom of my heart. I have been in five 2nd ward elections now and none were easy. I feel very fortunate to live in a place where so many people have a real passion for their town.

Once the anxiety and excitement wore off, and very quickly I should add, my thoughts turned to what the voters are saying. The 2nd ward Democratic Council race should be particularly instructive since it was the only local race that was contested. I received around two thirds of the votes. That means a significant percentage of voters did not support the incumbent(me). This reflects how residents feel, not only about their councilman but city government in general. One third of the voters are not happy with our services. We need to do better.

Even more important, the turnout was low, even for an off year. Are many people satisfied and therefore not motivated to vote? Or are they feeling nothing will change. I think some of both. The bottom line: we should not be satisfied with the election results and we should dedicate ourselves to the improvement of Plainfield.

For the most part I thought it was an issues oriented campaign. I stuck to my plan to talk about solutions. My opponent made some good points about economic development and ran an energetic campaign. I credit him for his passion. It got the best of him twice, once when he got very personal with a blogger who had, in my opinion, expressed his opinion about my opponent in a non-personal manner. Even more unfortunate was the election day exploitation of Park Hotel residents to make a political point that had no basis in reality. The voters did not buy it. I feel that my opponent is a good man and I hope he is re-evaluating this tactic. I also hope that like the rest of us candidates for public office, he is learning from his mistakes. I hope he will stay involved.

I am glad to put all that campaign energy back into my Council job and will do everything I can to earn your confidence.