On Monday night, at the District of Squamish Mayoral Election Forum sponsored by The Chief at the Sea to Sky Hotel, an elderly woman from the North Shore got up to speak -specifically, to ask why there were only 35 people in the room with her instead of hundreds.I had to empathize with her. I've had a unique perspective on this election campaign, having chaired two election forums. The Squamish Chamber of Commerce all-candidates' meeting was the only time during the campaign when 22 of the 23 people running for the nine municipal offices representing Squamish on our local council and school board were in the same room together. That meeting saw about 270 people at its height, but due to its marathon three-and-a-half hour length - a necessary evil given the number of candidates to hear from - the room was nearly empty by the time council candidates got to their closing statements after 9:30 p.m.Brennan Park was also distressingly roomy at the start of that meeting at 6:30 p.m. when the school board candidates got their one and only public exposure.As one of the mayoral candidates said in response to that comment, voter fatigue is certainly an issue. The municipal election campaign started literally days after our federal election last month and in the midst of an historic federal election in the United States that flooded our own airwaves with endless campaigning.And besides the two municipal election forums noted above, voters have also had chances to see their would-be councillors at other public meetings sponsored by the Squamish Arts Council, the Squamish Off-Road Cycling Association and the Squamish Nation, not to mention the myriad of individual candidate events at local restaurants and gathering places during the campaign.But will all that campaign activity bear fruit in the form of more people at the polls on Saturday?It has always been a great frustration to me that the lower the level of municipal government, the lower the voter turnout. Federal elections used to draw more than 70 or even 80 per cent of the population out to vote, though they have recently fallen into the 60s along with their provincial counterparts. But at the municipal level, with a few shining exceptions to the rule, turnout in the 40s is considered typical, with 60 per cent considered landslide-like participation.If anything, municipal turnout should be higher than other levels, not lower. No other level of government makes more decisions that impact you more directly. It's your local council, not your premier or prime minister, who runs the government that makes sure that water comes out when you turn on the tap, that your garbage gets picked up, that the pothole on your street is filled (eventually), that your local sports fields are in shape and the swimming pool and arena are open. None of those are glamorous, life-changing issues, and the overall hit to your paycheque is smaller, compared to the taxes Victoria and Ottawa levy. But they're essential nonetheless. And not all that a municipal council does can be called small potatoes. Local government decides the direction, shape and scope of development in your community. The look of your downtown, whether or not new stores and services come to town and where, and the future of massive, town-changing projects like the Oceanfront lands and Garibaldi at Squamish will be shaped by those seven men and women.Most importantly, in our view, local government is by far the most accessible level to you, the voter. What are the odds of meeting the Premier or even your MLA in the lineup at the grocery store on Saturday? Not nearly as good as running into your mayor or a council member. Better still, they're just a phone call or an email away - without a phalanx of bureaucrats in between.But still, turnout is terrible. Why?I don't think it's lack of interest -if that were the case, I doubt there would be 18 people running for the six spots on council. I've covered four general municipal elections in my 10 years here, and I have to say that overall this ranks as the best-qualified field of candidates I've ever seen.There are no less than five people who own or have started their own business and actually created local jobs (despite the claim by one council candidate at the Chamber forum that he was the only one to have done so). Between them, the candidates have given countless thousands of hours of volunteer service to a stunning variety of groups. Collectively, they are better-informed on the issues than I have ever seen in any campaign, have presented themselves well and collectively done more to engage the public in this campaign than ever before. They should be proud of their efforts.One would-be councillor, shortly before announcing his candidacy, came to me with the idea of a campaign called "Bring a Six-Pack to Vote" - no, not beer; that would be popular, but illegal - rather, a six-pack of friends to the polls, in the hopes of boosting our anemic voter turnout. He asked if The Chief would sponsor the idea, and while I very much like the idea, I had to say we couldn't sponsor a get-out-the-vote campaign that was organized by one candidate without endorsing him, a step this paper has chosen not to take. I asked him if he knew someone else not affiliated with his campaign who would be willing to take the idea on, but never heard back - and, to be fair, I never followed up on it either.Now here we are, the day before the campaign, and while it may be later than I'd like, I'm going to take up the banner: people of Squamish, bring your Six-Pack to vote today. It can be a co-worker or your boss, a friend or an enemy, a family member, a teammate or a parent of your kids' friends. It could just be the person you see in the post office or in the lineup at the grocery store. But please, do your part. We only get one chance every three years. Let's make it count.
