Ballots and polls

Another election is in the books. Here are just a few of my thoughts and observations from a busy day of election coverage. I knew things were tight in Montmorency County, but I never dreamed BOTH the millage proposals for the sheriff's department would fail. The deputies are currently driving cars that have excess of 180,000 miles and are well past their retirement time. If the millage requests would have been approved it would have allowed Sheriff Don Edwards to run patrol officers 24-7, several times a week, and hire more deputies. Instead it appears the county commissioners are going to cut 1 or 2 patrolman because of budget restraints. I hope the voters in the county didn't drop the ball on this. It took me about 10 seconds to fill out my ballot. I voted for a mayor, who ran unchallenged and a pair of city council members who ran against nobody. It appears to me that the people who had all the answers during public comment sessions at meetings must have forgotten to throw their names into the hat. Area officials say that the number of voters that came out to vote was on par with past elections, but it didn't take a trained eye to realize that more work must be done to encourage more people to the polls.