All politics is local

Originally published in the Ketchikan Daily News, September 2020; written by Rebecca Brown.

Have you ever been to a public meeting?

Many years ago, I attended all kinds of them for my job – my favorites were the sometimes spicy ports and harbors commission meetings in Homer, Alaska, but the city council meetings were a close second.

Victory. Heartbreak. People you know.

Seriously: If you have any inkling of the people and personalities involved, public meetings are some of the best must-see TV around. However, being in there in person – hearing the murmurs from the peanut gallery of What’s Really Going On – is electrifying.

The Oct. 6 election is nigh, and that means we will soon have a brand new cast of public officials at work (isn’t that thrilling?). The Ketchikan Public Library has some marvelous new books about the innards of small-town politics and the sacrifices involved with being in office.

Haines writer Heather Lende’s “Of Bears and Ballots” helps us better understand what it truly means to hold office in a tiny seaside town, right down to seeing neighbors struggle at the microphone.

“It’s okay, I whispered, and wished I could tell her that I know it’s hard to stand up and speak in here, and that doing so makes me shakes sometimes, too,” writes Lende, who also goes on to describe exactly what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a recall election. Not surprisingly: Gut wrenching.

Writer Tom Kizzia calls Lende “the voice of that friend down the street you love to chat with over coffee – the one who knows everything going on in town, but also knows the difference between gossip and storytelling.”

Similarly, Adrienne Martini writes “Somebody’s Gotta Do It: Why Cursing at the News Won’t Save the Nation, but Your Name on a Local Ballot Can.” Martini compared to sitting in office to running a vomit-inducing-but-worth-it marathon: “The trick is getting through nearly all hard things is to just keep moving forward tiny step by step. Cherish the moments of joy. Push through the discomfort.”

Voting is so easy – you can be like me and vote early through Oct. 5 at the Ketchikan Gateway Recreation Center on Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., or you can do it on +Oct. 6 at your election precinct from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.