Nov. 15 — Decisions are made by quarter of population

East Pierce residents should be embarrassed by voter turn-out numbers. Fewer than 50 percent of those who live in our communities — who pay taxes for fire and rescue, who send their children to local schools, who commute down city streets — register to vote. And only about 50 percent of those registered voters actually made it to the polls or mailed in absentee ballots last week. Which means that 25 percent of the potential voters made the choices last week that will affect thousands of residents for a long time. Apparently the other 75 percent are fine with having decisions made for them. It’s difficult to understand how 28,000 Puyallup, 7,000 Sumner and 12,000 Bonney Lake residents are all too busy or have such little civic concern to make a decision about who will represent them and ballot measures that will impact their lives. Granted, it wasn’t a presidential election year, or even a ballot with state legislative races. The county auditor said this year’s response isn’t all that different from past years when the issues are solely local. But every vote counts, and that’s especially true in small communities where the margin between candidates is a matter of a couple dozen votes, like the close race between Puyallup city council contenders Rick Hansen and Kathy Turner. Another good example is the Bonney Lake council ward 5 race between Dan Decker and Phil DeLeo where fewer than 500 total votes were cast. Nothing can be done now, of course. The polls have closed, the races will be finalized in a few weeks and candidates who were elected by a quarter of the local residents will be sworn into office. They will make decisions about controversial issues, such as downtown development, how to handle parking and controlling population growth. The chance to express your feelings about these issues was Nov. 6. If you decided not to vote and passed on the opportunity to offer your opinion then, you’re less credible in offering one later.