On Whitewater’s 4th District Council Race

One part of the city has an election in the spring primary today, for the city’s fourth council district. Incumbent Lynn Binnie is running for another term against challengers Greg Meyer and Paul Yvarra.

It wouldn’t have been my inclination to presume to endorse in the race, but more than a few readers have emailed, asking me about my views, or urging me toward one candidate or another. I’ve replied directly to those messages, and will summarize my thinking here.

I will spare the city the childish habit of posting their photographs and addresses. It doesn’t matter what they look like; one can assume they all live within the district. Whitewater’s politics are more than an online dating service or freshman yearbook.

One can fairly state that these three men are all sincere, love our small city, and want the best for it. I can fairly state that – so far as I’m aware – not one of them inclines toward my own politics.

That doesn’t matter, of course; our city is more than political parties, particular views, or tidy outcomes.

Those who have done the most damage to this city’s economy and prospects have never understood as much; on the contrary, they have sought – again and again – a single view, a single way, a rigid orthodoxy delivered in a cheery package.

I’ll not make their self-serving mistake; a good candidate needn’t hold one’s views. Very often, one finds that he or she holds very different views.

Lynn Binnie has served sincerely and diligently these several years. My disagreements with his particular opinions are no impediment to seeing as much.

There won’t likely come a time when I think that his willingness to regulate alcohol does any good to prevent alcoholism. Similarly, Whitewater will not achieve prosperity or fiscal prudence by favoring big projects over small, practical ideas.

But of his political generation, those gentlemen in their sixties who serve on Council or on committees, he has the best chance of any to see and help steer Whitewater toward better waters.

It’s a futile – but still an alluring – idea that the only choices before us are good ones, with no risks about which to be concerned. (The pressure to defend past mistakes and risk of similar, future ones is still potent in Whitewater.)

Now, I have teased about Mr. Binnie’s view that in politics one may go ‘above and beyond.’ I don’t think so – there’s only daily work, repeated again and again, without looking back to see if it’s been enough, or more than enough.

And yet I see, as I hope that Whitewater sees, that among those candidates on the ballot today, and among his generation in the city, Lynn Binnie is notable as industrious and thoughtful.

Ideological differences notwithstanding, he easily merits re-election to office.