Letters

The village elections presented a hard choice, and an easy one; unsurprisingly, the outcome reflected that.

Rob Coburn was the easy choice. He is smart and offered fresh, independent perspectives and renewed energy. Choosing between Roy Stevenson and Robin Brown also seemed easy. Stevenson showed some independence in his common-sense approach talking about the tree bill, whereas Brown has always presented (as reinforced by her debate performance) the image of a nice but mostly disinterested “go-along-to-get-along” vote.

Stevenson, however, came close to losing my vote (but didn’t) when asked, at the debate, about addressing Jesse Warren’s frequent criticisms. Snidely quoting George Bernard Shaw, he said: “Never wrestle with a pig; you both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

Funny? Perhaps. Appropriate? No.

Admittedly, Jesse’s criticisms are often misplaced, but often he highlights issues, perspectives and concerns that are important to many of the residents the board serves. That fact that they view Warren as a deeply flawed messenger does not make his messages wrong, or justify such dismissiveness. Our elections are close, and sometimes rough, because of a persistent political divide that shows no sign of abating, and the mayor, board members and candidates would do well to remember that they serve the 45 percent who voted against them, too. Yes, elections do and should have consequences — but let’s not allow the national-level acrimony into our village’s politics.

Which brings me to what I viewed as a very hard decision: the vote for mayor. Mayor Bill Manger has done a remarkable job in many ways and, having briefly served on a committee he appointed to look at code revisions, I know he has vast energy to fix all sorts of issues facing the village. I applaud and admire his commitment, obvious intelligence and energy.

I also have met Ed Simioni a couple of times, and observed him on the board. I am likewise hugely impressed with his dedication and commitment to our community.

One would, thus, think that Simioni and Manger could seamlessly work together for village’s future, but the board meetings show the opposite. Simioni’s views are often received with impatient dismissiveness by the majority. Yet the debate highlighted at least two instances where Simioni’s candidacy alone caused the mayor to moderate or change his positions. We are lucky Simioni was willing to run, and lucky to have him on the board. Thank you, Ed.

To be clear, I think the decision on mayor was hard, not because we had two bad candidates but because we had two good ones. How lucky are we?

Now I sincerely hope that Mayor Manger will embrace Simioni’s (and Coburn’s) input, because, in the end, that is what we all voted for.

James Sandnes

Southampton Village