We are less than a week out from our national elections. It has been a dismaying campaign which has only further divided our fellow Americans. In five months, communities across Growing Community Media’s coverage area will have critical elections for municipal government, school, park and library boards.
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Uncontested so far
Brookfield’s PEP Party has announced its slate for the April municipal election. Steady as she goes could be the campaign slogan for a political organization that has fully dominated local elections for nearly two decades.
Mike Garvey is, once again, the candidate for village president. Garvey and Trustee Kit Ketchmark have swapped that role multiple times to satisfy local term limit restrictions. Garvey is going for his sixth straight term on the board and his fourth at the top of the ticket. Ketchmark is up for trustee once again and Jennifer Hendricks is running for re-election as trustee. There are two newcomers rounding out the remaining trustee and clerk posts.
Regular readers know we often praise the steady headway these PEP leaders have made in turning Brookfield forward. Under its leadership, Brookfield’s government has become more professional, more intentional, more progressive, more transparent.
That said, there is still a bit of time for more candidates to file for this election. We hope that will happen. Contested elections are good for everybody. It sharpens everyone’s thinking when positions need to be explained and defended. It is good when new ideas are injected into the discussion. It increases the interest of locals in their local democracy when races are contested.
Historically, Brookfield has had contested elections. And it is true that going back, some of those campaigns brought forth loons, and some of those loons won. But in this new and improved Brookfield, we hope there might be some critical thinkers who would like to engage in a sincere contest of ideas.