I’m an independent that leans conservative and I am not involved with the local republican party.

I do regularly attend government meetings and post notes from the meetings on the Facebook Group Brown County  Matters and in opinion columns in the Brown County Democrat. I also share what I learn in posts at Independent Voters of Brown County IN.

I also volunteer with the Brown County Leader Network that supports a planning, fact, and process based approach for guiding improvement.

Status Quo?  In Brown County, my observations are that if you have an idea and know the right people, you can get government support and funding for your project.  A problem with this approach is that pushing a solution without making the case as to “the scope and extent of the problem” can result in pushback and lack of community support. But given the monopoly on political power within the county, this pushback can be ignored and supported by appointments to boards and commissions of people that will behave as expected – no surprises. This leads to the non-selection of people that question policy and fewer people volunteering to serve. This then contributes to the perception that things are controlled by the “Same Ten People” (STP).  The sad part is that individuals that volunteer and spend an inordinate amount of time on what they think is (and it might be) a good project, are applying processes and working within a system that might not produce the best results and receiving the positive recognition from the community that they deserve.

The Democratic Candidates for County Commissioner and Council have identified their 2020 platform. One of their  points  was calling for the dissoluton of the Brown County Regional Sewer District (BCRSD) Board and a counter-response.

• Sep 29, 2020. BCD.  Letter: In response to call to ‘dissolve’ sewer district board. To the editor: Your Aug. 5 edition published a letter to the editor titled “Local Democrat Party candidates adopt platform.”
• Oct 13, 2020.  BCD, Letter: Sewer district is ‘a solution in search of a problem’ by Kevin Fleming

The Republican candidates have not published their platofrm which may imply their support for the status quo as described above.

Given the political divisiveness within America at the national level, what effect might this have on COUNTY (local) elections? Will there be more straight-ticket voting or more scrutiny of the positions of individual candidates regardless of party affiliation? Higher or lower voter turnout? More non-votes (leave selection blank) for one or more candidates?

(I will be posting a comparison of 2020 election results results with past years).