Don't forget to vote Tuesday

All elections are important and have consequences, but some elections have more far reaching consequences than others.

The upcoming city council primary election on Sept. 8 and the general election on Nov. 3 will be the two most important city council elections since at least 2006, because the two new council members to be selected will have the responsibility of helping to hire the city's new permanent city manager who will hopefully put the city back on track towards prosperity, which has been at a standstill since the 2006 city council elections.

Without the two new members, the council cannot hire a new city manager, or even fire the current interim city manager. Those actions require a minimum of four votes.

And if something should happen to one of the remaining three council members before the November general election, the council will be unable to do anything, because everything, including certifying the election results, requires three votes to pass.

Because of the far reaching consequences of these elections, voters need to consider several things when they go to the polls on Sept. 8. They need to not only look at what a candidate says today about issues, but what, if anything, they have said or done in the past. They also should consider the candidates ability to serve out the term. In recent years we have had four council members resign his or her seat. Most were for good reasons; one did not bother to give a public reason, he just resigned.

There also have been two council members who had cancer, one died while on the council and the other, shortly after his term ended. Both councilmen served to the best of their ability, but the rigor of their disease and the required treatment, impaired their performance and caused them to miss many meetings and functions.

We understand that the city has received numerous applications for the city manager's position and will be accepting applications until the end of September, at which time a committee will select those that meet the criteria already set out by the council.

However, the responsibility to pick two new council members currently lies in the hands of Nevada voters and we hope the turn out is much larger than in most primary elections where only a couple of hundred voters take part.

Nevada Daily Mail