Dryden JV football gets a compliment from Deb Green of Auburn, while the recent Congressional races gets slammed by Peter Davies of Dryden on today's opinion page.
There's also an editorial on the role of local government in national issues by the Journal. I agree completely with their headline: "Town goverment: Local issues deserve passion", but can't agree with their apparent effort to build a wall between local and national or state government. I'd like to see a lot of the people who focus exclusively on national issues spend more time contemplating their local government, but see no reason to completely lock local government out of the larger conversation.
Way back when, Congressional representatives were actually accessible to their constituents. Now even state representatives represent vast numbers of people, and seem mostly to count faxes, letters, and calls. If people have to band together to make their voices heard to government, going through government seems like a reasonable way to do it, if not the first priority of local government.
Local governments certainly voice their opinions on matters that affect them and their constituents, and I don't expect that to change. Nor does it seem remotely likely that local government will turn into a lobby for the national views of a given municipality's constituents, forgetting about the fundamental work they need to get done.
Posted by simon at November 21, 2006 12:52 PM in Ithaca Journal