That’s been the issue in Asheville, while Roch and Bubba get into it over at Cone’s about whether or not Greensboro elections should be partisan. I’m all for it, especially for the school board, which educrats everywhere (except in Forsyth County) agree should most definitely be nonpartisan. Any time a citizens walks into a voting booth it’s politics, and the idea that elected officials can “rise above politics” only serves to camouflage justifications for tax increases.
Cone weighs in, saying “Party lines often fail to define positions on local issues in a useful way.” I guess can see that for planning and zoning issues, although they’ve become politicized with the Smart Growth movement. But the major local issue everywhere is how taxpayers’ money is spent, right? That’s a partisan issue at all other levels of government, so I don’t see why it would cause problems at the local level.
Cone also cites our colorful Guilford County commissioners as “an example of the hazards of party politics in local governance.” But commissioners just passed a bipartisan budget in years, and property taxes still went up. Proof that nothing’s perfect, I guess.