Some interesting races

Filing in the municipal elections closed Friday, and we should have some interesting elections in the fall.
Fremont’s mayoral race should be a good one. I think most people in town know all three of the outstanding candidates running.
I can’t say that I know all of the candidates in Pikeville running for the board. It is good to see that many people willing to put their names forward to serve.
Likewise in Stantonsburg, a number of people have indicated a willingness to run for the board.
Unfortunately, Eureka continues to struggle.
I have attended Eureka Town Board meetings in recent months, and I know there are concerned people who I believe, by and large, are making the best decisions for the Town of Eureka serving on the town board, regardless of how they were elected.
There’s a measure of humility that most of us find appealing in those who don’t step forward but who are tapped by others to serve. While Eureka has gotten by with this strategy in the past, in too many cases, people who receive a handful of write-in votes serve after those who received more turned the position down. It’s time for a change.
It’s time that some take it upon themselves, those who truly love the town, and make sure people who are qualified and eager to serve are elected. I call upon the good people in the churches, the Ruritan Club members, and any others to get together and discuss this with their friends. If you come up with candidates, the News Leader will help put them before the voters. Call us and let us know.

Twenty-five years ago this fall, Marilyn and I bought the Wayne-Wilson Weekly News and moved to Fremont. The next fall there was a mayoral election in Fremont I won’t soon forget.
W.A. “Punk” Wooten was the incumbent mayor, and Joel O’Neal, who had been serving on the board, filed to challenge. Fremont’s controversial electric department supervisor, Doug Lane, decided to run for office as well.
I won’t claim to know each of them well, but Punk was an older man who without a doubt loved Fremont. He made decisions with perhaps a bit of a heavy hand, confident he was trying to do the right thing. Punk was a bit what I would call “Old School” in his methods.
Joel was one of the younger leaders in the town. He perhaps represented a younger, more progressive approach to the challenges facing the town.
Doug Lane was in more than one way the “wild card.” He represented the mavericks in town who wanted to shake things up, go against the status quo. There were rumors, which I never substantiated, that he went before some in town promising if elected that he would lower their electric rates.
Clearly Punk and Joel split what some might consider traditional voters, and Doug appealed to another group. Doug was elected.
To his credit, Doug did his best to serve, and in some ways was a pretty good mayor. He clearly was the least qualified, and was embroiled in an investigation of a questionable electric department relationship with a supplier of transformers to the town.
I don’t believe we have anything like that this time in Fremont. I do believe we have an election that could be very exciting and difficult to predict.

I pledge that in our tradition, we will do our best to put the different candidates before you. We will hopefully give you more information than you need to help you make your decision before going to the polls.
We will do our best to present that information in a fair format. While we will, over time, no doubt form some opinions, we will do our best to keep those on the editorial page.
I think we have some interesting races to talk about.

Today I make one of those tough decisions. I will be raising the cost of the newspaper for many of you.
We have not raised the subscription price of the paper in five years. During that time we have absorbed a number of cost increases. We have also tried to trim where we could to keep our costs in line. We’ve stretched the rubber band about as far as we can go.
Last week our postal rates increased dramatically. While we knew to expect a significant increase, we did not get the forms until earlier this month. As we have analyzed the new rates and our other costs, we have recognized that the increases would be more dramatic than we had originally anticipated.
We are increasing local subscriptions from $20 to $24 annually. That is the biggest jump I can remember. I wish we could keep it at $20, or at least keep the increase smaller, but it’s just not possible to maintain a quality product without passing along the costs.
We know some of you are on fixed incomes, and I regret the hardship this increase may pose for you. We will continue to offer specials from time to time, and encourage you to look at those as a means to reduce your subscription costs.
While all of us recognize the costs of stamps continues to go up, those of us who regularly mail larger items know those costs have increased even more dramatically than the cost of stamps. That is even more the case for newspapers mailed outside the local area. Out of state subscriptions will be rising from $31 to $48 per year.
We will be offering for the first time six-month subscriptions to help people cope with the high costs of annual subscriptions.
We will continue to look for ways we can keep the cost of your subscription reasonable.