OCR Text |
Show I Under The Capitol Dome I !; By Harry Marlowe Even though most of the political polit-ical noises coming out of Utah this year are aimed at 1956, it is going almost unnoticed that this fall virtually every community in the state will elect municipal officials of-ficials in varying numbers. There has been a growing tendency ten-dency in the past few years to get more and more people interested inter-ested in government on state and national levels. Unfortunately, this attitude, while a good thing in its own right, is having the effect of lessening les-sening the interest of the people of the state in city and government, govern-ment, particularly city government. govern-ment. This is not a good thing. Taxation Taxa-tion and government, like charity, begin at home.. City taxes and city regulations are something which have an effect on every citizen or nearly every citizen. This is why right now is a pretty good time to stop putting the accent on 1956 and see what can be done about getting some interest in 1955 elections. Of course, numerous cities have good enough government now that they can afford to let things slip by. But those cities are in a minimum. For one thing, there is the whole philosophy of city manager versus city commission form of government, particularly in areas such as Provo and Ogden. There should be an emphasis placed right now on getting good men interested in local government. govern-ment. Naturally, such jobs do not pay. But then, until you get into the recently raised salaries of fed- I eral officials, what political jobs I do pay, except in opportunities to I do service. Granted, the men who control the machinery of state and federal feder-al government should be men of high caliber. ' So also should be men who control the policy-making and lawmaking law-making machinery in the governmental govern-mental units closest to home the cities and towns. Why not, then, get political thinking down to the grass roots? By putting in top men in the local positions you can accomplish two things. You can get local government efficiency into operation at the level where it will do the most good for the greatest number of people. And, by so doing, you build up a reservoir of good candidates to step up higher posts after they have proved themselves in lesser offices. Let's don't stop looking ahead to the next state and national election. But let's get into the swing of things and think also of the election at hand 1955 and municipal office holders. |