It is as I feared; our town’s mayoral election is turning into a nasty donnybrook! What is taking place is political bullying; there can be no other name for it. If it were happening in our schools, the town would be screaming its head off!

One side is desperately trying to politicize the race and one non-candidate is lobbing mud bombs at them, which has already produced one lawsuit. In general, I think it is fair to say that a majority of the “facts” are woefully distorted. The council races are more genteel but the noise from the mayoral side makes it difficult to hear.

This type of campaign is not good for the town. What we need is solid and well thought out information on what the candidate can offer in the way of solutions to the town’s revenue issues. Like it or not, we do have serious money issues. The costs of police and fire protection are increasing annually, our streets are in serious need of a regular maintenance program and the town’s infrastructure is showing its age.

The rainy day reserves are very low, less than $2 million dollars when good practice says it should be at least ten percent of the total budget, which means we should have at least $3.5 millions in reserve. What do we do when the liner in Fountain Lake fails? It is 17 years into a projected life expectancy of 20 years.

The emotional damage and its negative public relations impact can seriously affect our ability to attract new business and the younger families we desire. We need to stop quibbling about what is past and concentrate on building our future! Ballots are in the mail, get informed and vote.