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Council Election

 11 Nov 2011

 (Posted as first draft, grammar and spelling corrected later)

Election day was Tuesday and the unofficial results show Ed got more votes.  There is no indication that when the official results get published on Nov 29th they will be any different.  I thought I would write out my thoughts about the election and my campaign. There may be some usefulness to you if you plan on campaigning but this article is for me and maybe my kids when they get older (i.e. I'm not planning to try and organize the article for readability).

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This morning it occurred to me that when I was handing out Totes and was face to face with a person at their door, I should have included a catch phrase such as "Remember McMasters brings you value" or "McMasters for transparency".   My standard greeting was "Hi, I'm Tom McMasters.  I'm running for city council. I have a website. I'd appreciate if you would check me out and possibly give me a vote on Nov 8th."  While lying in bed this morning I was trying to figure out why I got so few visitors to my campaign website.  I did run into a few people that said they don't use the web.  In those instances I made an overt offer to talk with them more, almost none of them wanted more information at that time. I would say a majority of the people that took my card were receptive and said "Ok, I'll check it out".  The web statistics tell me not very many people actually did go to my website because of these contacts. So this morning I was thinking I should have had a catch phrase.  Thinking about it more though -- the rest of my presentation went like this -- if the person didn't look like they wanted to talk about the campaign I said "One last thing.  You won't see any Tom McMasters yard signs because I didn't spend money on yard signs.  Instead, I used that money on something I thought was a little more functional.  Pink Totes.  If you go on my website and think I'm a good candidate I would appreciate your carrying around my tote in order to help publicize my campaign."  To me this is a way of saying "McMasters brings you value".  My method wasn't as blunt or cheesy but after thinking about it I've changed my conclusion that I wasted a great opportunity to "get my message out".  Yes, the way I said it required two step thinking but I think a lot of people got it.  Besides, one of my core ideologies is that we somehow need to get people away from voting because of slogan's and party affiliation.  If this is going to happen I'm going to have to trust that people are capable of two step thinking and the reason they focus on slogan's is because no one else is treating them like adults. 

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The campaign website was mostly a failure.  I've been writing about city business since January.  During the primary I handed out 2000 pens  (probably 500 face to face) and during this general election I handed out 1000 totes (probably 500 face to face) and 1500 rulers.  All the newspaper write-ups contained my website and I had advertisements on FaceBook that pointed to my website. Watching the web statistics I probably had 10 or 15 consistent readers and no more than 300 people from the area that ever signed on.  I did have one gentlemen from the S streets (I believe he lives on Shalamar Dr) that told me he looked at my website every week and looked forward to seeing what was going on in the city.  I really appreciated this feedback.  I also got a few emails.  But considering how much information I posted having fewer than 10 people ask for more information or offer corrections / discussions constitutes a failure rating for the website. 

Part of the problem was presentation.  If the site were prettier perhaps more of the 300 other residents would have come back.  Part of the problem with the presentation turned out to be caused by my trying to make the site look more professional.  I have an circa 2003 version of MS publisher and decided to use it to create the website.  It turns out that it contains coding the MS Internet Explorer 8 does not read.  On this computer I was using IE 7 and Firefox until the end of September.  It wasn't until then when I installed IE8 that I realized that many of the features that looked pretty good in IE7 and Firefox were creating blank spots and x's in the newer version of Internet Explorer.  When I discovered this I went back to using an even older version of MS Frontpage.  The conversion of pages wasn't fast and the old version of FrontPage just doesn't have a "modern" feel.  But it is functional.  

Concerning content, about a week before the election I realized that in order for the content of my website to make sense a person would have had to been following along all year.  I also knew there weren't very many of these people in the city.  I didn't do a good job of cleaning up the site for a simple read.  However as a comparison to Ed's site I still like my approach much better.  He paid for a traditional site that contains no useful information.  My site is a bit disorganized and not pretty but people could actually learn about the city.  Still, one of my complaints about the council is that a resident would have to invest too much useless time in order to figure out what is going on in the city. A lot of the reason for this is because they don't organize their presentation in a manner that is friendly to a normal citizen with normal time constraints.   So I'm proud that I'm getting some more information out and putting it in a format that doesn't take the 20 hours a month a person would otherwise have to spend to get the same information from council.  After all I am just a normal citizen with normal time constraints, but I'm also aware it would still take someone with an above average interest in city business to spend the couple hours a month it would take to get the information from my presentation.  Herein lies the dilemma of my continuing to participate in monitoring council.  I have enough time and interest to become familiar with the issues and probably write a quick summary.  I have enough time and interest to go out and learn how to create slicker web pages.  But I don't have enough time to do both (and for some reason I can't get my 13 and 14 year old kids to want to learn how to create web pages).  Ending point, I could use help if you are so inclined.   Otherwise expect content over glitz (and a few incomplete sentences as well). 

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This next sentence sums up election day pretty good.  Assuming the results found on the Board of Election's website are accurate it seems appropriate that you would focus on what Ed can bring to the council.  Election day was an extremely fun day for me and my family and considering I have five kids who play soccer, participate in drama club and occasionally need help with homework, even the outcome was good.

This year (2011) I've been pretty lucky not to have scheduling conflicts.  I've attended nearly every Administration Committee and general council meetings.  I also managed to make nearly all my son's JV soccer games as well as the other kid's recreation league games. In fact, other than not playing much golf this year and creating a messy home office, monitoring council has not conflicted with family obligation much at all. Last year (2010) I was out of town for nearly 4 months because of my work and it is unlikely over the next four years I will be so lucky with the soccer schedules.  So logically, it's probably better for me personally not to be held to the commitment I was signing up for if I would have been elected (especially since a couple weeks ago I volunteered to coach my 7 year old's BB team). 

Thanks:  I have to say thanks to Ed North for working the polls both election days.  When he came to vote at 10:30 I asked him to go over to St Petes during an hour at lunch and he stayed the rest of the day.  Gloria and Cheryl stood out in the cold for me in the May election.  Randy Warden help distribute campaign materials both elections and the Feagles helped my Facebook advertising.  If you were one of the few people that emailed me or talked about the campaign out in the streets, I want you to know I appreciated the conversation and the advice (even if I didn't adopt the recommendation).  To Tressa and Dan from Irvin's soccer team sorry for not recognizing you (Tressa a couple of times).  And to the lady over on Red Oak, I may have asked five or six people the same question I asked you.  And a couple of them may have said no.  But your the only one I asked "do I know you" - twice 

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Campaign Decisions:

Totes/rulers versus Yard Signs.  I did have a couple of people tell me before the final week that I should have purchased yard signs.  Yes, they are effective but honestly I'd be more upset about the money I spent on the election if I would have spent money on signs and still not received more votes than Ed.  It goes back to my original thinking - at least that money will get some use.  Besides I think the most effective campaign material was the endorsement letter from the Fire Fighters Union.

Endorsement Letter - I doubt the Fire Fighter's union would have endorse me but I would have liked the opportunity to seek it.  I probably wouldn't have gotten it for two reasons.  First, although I am an moderate independent because I challenged Rep Boehner in the Republican primary last year this technically makes me a registered Republican.  Secondly, because I believe in transparency when the union asked to renegotiate contracts earlier in the year I asked council to define the objectives and guidelines for the new contracts. Still I would have like the opportunity to talk with them. On one hand if Ed reached out to contact them then there should be some bonus for having that political savvy.  On the other hand don't the leaders of the organization have an obligation to make sure they are giving the best advice to their members.  True, I believed the fact that the city tried to hide the fact they wanted to side step SB5 would be detrimental to the reputation of Fire Fighters and back in June while the union was still scared the public didn't support Fire Fighters I promoted being forthright and open about the requests (fast forward to minute 44 of the council meeting video or read my articles).  But one point I would have made that I think is more relevant to the Fire Fighters, Police and other city employees is the difference in Ed's and my positions on TIF revenues and TIF districts.  You can see in early articles I wanted to retire all the debt due to the I-70 Interchanges and investigate the possibility of dissolving the TIF district.  This should be important to Fire Fighters and Police because of the function of the TIF district.  TIF districts are created to help investors get confidence the city will pay it's bonds.  The main reason this works is because the taxes that go into building the TIF fund can not be used to pay operating expenses.  In other words, tax money gets a new label that makes it impossible for it to be used to pay Fire Fighters, Police, snow plow operators, or even the electric bill.  My position all year was let's think about the consequences of borrowing all this money for the aquatic center and Heights development project (i.e. besides creating a ton of debt it also locks out the possibility of using this tax money to pay for Police and Fire needs for 30 years).  Ed's on record supporting the new Heights development project and he's happy with the costs associated with the Aquatic Center.  What I'm about to write doesn't change the fact that Ed is a nice guy with a good education and the capability of understanding the issues.  But Ed was willing to stand up at the end of the council meeting on Aug 22nd and tell council he fully supported them signing the 201/202 Corridor Development Plan even though he has never read the plan nor has he investigated TIF districts or their impact on operating budgets.    I guess the question is how accountable should leaders of an organization be when making recommendations on an endorsement choice.  In this case, I think the signatories of Ed's letter did their members and the people of Huber Heights a disservice by not at least considering both candidates in the election before they decided to choose one. 

Caveat:  Just to confirm your suspicion that I'm not a great politician because I am incapable of keeping things simple.  The fact is I can't write the above paragraph without admitting that if the Heights Project works then the income tax revenue's generated should provide additional general fund support that could be used to pay for Fire and Police salaries.  But if I add that then I have to also have to add how unlikely it is that the Heights Project will work when the mayor doesn't even understand the purpose of a budget. 

This keep is simple idea hurt me in other areas as well.  Ed wasn't lying when he promoted the Heights because he believed it would bring in a billion dollars.  If you don't read the plan or try and investigate where those numbers come from and you believe them - its technically not lying.  I on the other hand look at what little is available - for instance they don't even believe the first 17 acres of the project will be completed within 4 years and think "how is it possible they will be generating a billion dollars?"  But since we don't know the details I'm not going to run around saying the number is a lie.  Instead I say make that number make sense.  And so it is with most of the issues.  

Lesson learned - I think a little different than most.  In hind sight it is obvious that if one candidate is promising to give you a billion dollars and the other is telling you you need to spend a couple hours a month paying attention to what's going on ..... obviously you take the billion dollars. 

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I have more that I want to write concerning Facebook advertising (Facebook money = yard sign money but I did it), Issue 3, I wish I was smart enough to remember all the people I've met (but I'm not).   Did I mention I've let my office get really messy?  If not my wife has reminded me about a dozen times this morning. 

One last thing; There were more people that told me they were going to vote for the other guy because I got the most votes in May and they wanted to get rid of the incumbents then there were that mentioned they had been on my website. I guess they didn't go to Ed's Website either

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