Sequim Gazette Editorial and Letters to the Editor

The fate of the Sequim school levy may be sitting on your kitchen table.

You know, the place where you throw the day's mail when you're too hassled by your spouse/children/dog/cat/all of the above to pay it any mind.

It's the envelope from Clallam County Auditor Patty Rosand, the one that contains your ballot if you live in the Sequim School District, which you were too busy to open, much less mark and return.

There it sits among the junk mail, the dog leash, the dead flashlight batteries you don't know where to recycle, the pair of pliers you forgot to hang back up in the garage and the teacher's note that says your son's science project was due - WHAT'S THIS?! - Monday.

Scarier still, however, is that it will stay there through next Tuesday, Feb. 9, election day.

Scariest of all, perhaps, is that many elections are decided not by the ballots that are cast but by those that are left on the kitchen table or wherever a family's "in" box is.



Flex your voting muscle

By now you'll have noticed that the Gazette has supported the levy through the three Guest Opinions it has published.

Equally important as supporting Sequim schools, though, is exercising your right to vote.

As of Tuesday, Feb. 2, a week before the deadline, 8,265 of the school district's 23,042 voters had cast their ballots, a return rate of 40.3 percent.

That's not bad - and certainly better than voters in the Cape Flattery School District, 295 of whom mailed back their ballots, a return rate of 27.5 percent - but it's not good enough.

Voting, like other rights of American citizenship, is a potentially use-it-or-lose it privilege. It's no less patriotic than flying the flag, and it absolutely glows with grownup-ness.



Support Sequim students

So now that you've disinterred your ballot from that tabletop mess, how should you mark it?

I hope you'll black in the FOR box with the required black ballpoint pen.

Granting the schools' plea for enough money to buy back the basics it has had to abandon during this recession is something voters should do on behalf of the children who need a quality education but who themselves can't vote.

There's an argument that voting no is a vote against Washington's rickety tax system and inadequate funding of education.

This is a bit like treating dandruff with a blowtorch. Campaign for tax reform, if you will, but don't shortchange children in the meantime.



Got a doctor?

There's also a sentiment among older voters that they have no children in school and hence no obligation to support Sequim schools.

Well, they may not have children but they do have doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, financial planners - all the young professionals who won't settle in a community that won't support its schools. That's not to mention the hundreds of parents who hold service jobs.

Finally, I know of no one who'd want to live in a place that has given the back of its hand to its youngsters.

So if you haven't voted, find your ballot right now, fill it in and put it in the mail or in the drop box at 1001 E. Washington St., Sequim, or the Clallam County Courthouse, 221 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles.

Don't allow forgotten ballots to decide the future of the Sequim School District's children.



Jim Casey is the editor of the Sequim Gazette. Reach him at jcasey@sequimgazette.com.