Wanted: Public Servants

We who seek to serve the public via the free press admire those who also serve the public by holding government office without pay. An often thankless task, we understand, but an essential one.
Here in Sonoma, several more such public servants will be needed this fall, to stand for election to the school board (as Trustees of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District) and the hospital board (as Directors of the Sonoma Valley Health Care District). Many people rank the schools and the hospital as two of the most important factors affecting our lives and our future here in Sonoma Valley. We’ve written often about the challenges facing public education and public health, challenges that look even more difficult in 2009 and beyond. How our representatives meet those challenges will change lives, literally, for many of us and our children.
This year is especially important, as three seats on each five-member board are up for election. That means that new majorities can be created; truly, change can be brought about, if that’s what we, as citizens, want. November’s elections will have far-reaching impact at the Presidential level, as Barack Obama and John McCain have different visions for our future as a nation. Potentially, the November balloting is no less important at the local level, where it is hoped that candidates with distinct visions step forward.
Now, we understand that some incumbents on each board are planning to run for re-election, but that should not stop other service-minded individuals from offering themselves for election to the school or hospital board. Readers know our appreciation for competitive election campaigns, which force candidates to develop a clear message and to articulate it. This clarifies for voters what we can expect from the candidates, if elected as our representatives.
Rulers in human history have seldom focused on service. Rather, their concerns have been self-preservation – who’s plotting to assassinate me from within or attack me from without – and self-promotion – “Does this palace make me look rich?” During the centuries of monarchy and warfare that have marked Europe (not to mention the rest of the world), it seems to have been the rare ruler whose primary concern was the betterment of life for the ruled.
Yet that very concern is the remarkable element of the American experiment in self-governance: the emphasis on service to others. Some would say that this focus, built into the very framework of our representative system of government, has a strong Christian basis: “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” Private citizens step forward to serve their fellow citizens for a time, then step back into private life, and nowhere is this more pertinent, and more needed, than at the local level, on our school and hospital boards.
Commitments to run for office need to be made by early August, in order to stand for election in November. Fortunately, our valley is so well served by free media that candidates’ messages can reach the voters easily in that period of time.
Is it you, dear reader? Are you the one to serve?