Radio, Radio

On Friday I went on Bill Dwight's show to talk about tomorrow's override vote. I appeared with Northampton City Council President Jim Dostal and you can listen to the show here if you'd like.

I've met Jim Dostal once or twice and have certainly never appeared on the radio with him before. We met again in the waiting area outside of the WHMP studio and strategized for only a couple of minutes before it was time to go on air.

Jim spoke from a numbers and City government perspective; I spoke from the perspective of a regular guy who researched it and came to the conclusion that the override is the way to go. I think that Bill did a good job of asking each of us questions that allowed us to speak from our respective positions. I think it was a good appearance, though I'm not so sure how much good it will do in the grand scheme of the Override.

I'll admit that I'm suffering from a bit of campaign fatigue. I'm looking forward to post-election time, when I can open my email and not see messages from people looking for me to help out with this or that. On the flip side, one of the advantages I've had in being so involved with the campaign is that I've had a set of discrete tasks to focus on that has allowed me to not focus on what it will mean to me personally if the override doesn't pass. And I'm not talking just about the $150 or so that my taxes will increase, but the affect the cuts will have on my children's education. Former classmates of mine have posted class pictures from elementary school on Facebook and I've been surprised at how large the class sizes were back then, and that was with one teacher and no aides. Of course, we were all much better students back then than what you'd find in elementary schools today, right?

But it's not just about the obvious things that can be seen, like larger class sizes, fewer extracurriculars, fewer police on the streets, but also the unseen stuff. I mean, how frustrating must it be to a city employee that the people in the community place so little value on your job that they're going to make sure that you don't get a raise and have to work harder because those around you have gotten laid off, and that's the good news? It's got to wear people down. And then there's the ultimate impact this will have on the overall desirability of Northampton as a place to live. People don't want to live in a place with declining schools and city services. And this isn't something that will immediately appear on Wednesday should the override vote not pass; it will seep in slowly but appreciably over time.

But a lot of people don't want to hear about that. They see it as a black and white issue: it's not the right time to ask them to pay more in taxes. Of course, they don't offer when a good time to ask for more in taxes might be, which leads me to think that there is never a good time because they'll never agree to it.

And that's where the challenge is. Without any campaigning, if you asked people in Northampton to approve an override, most people will say no. History shows us that the voters here don't approve general overrides. So tomorrow we'll find out if hard times and a well-run campaign can overcome a longstanding bias against general tax increases.