Citizens urged to run for Town Board, highway post
SATISH MOHAN Amherst Supervisor
Every two years the Amherst voters elect three members of the Amherst Town Board for a four-year term. This coming November you, the people, will exercise your vote to elect three Town Board members and one highway superintendent.

Your next four years of town government will be as good as your efforts now to volunteer and nominate Town Board members who you think will carry on your agenda for the town.

"Government by the people" charges the people with the responsibility to identify and nominate those who will represent their values.

To those who are thinking to jump into the public service arena but are scared, I want to assure them that life in politics is tough but very satisfying.

I am reminded of a quote from Winston Churchill, who said, "You make a living with what you get; you make a life with what you give." I really, really feel that way in my job as your town supervisor.

I request you to caucus with your neighbors and friends and develop a slate of volunteers to serve as Town Board members and a highway superintendent for the next four years.

Albert Einstein said, "The significant problems that we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." For the town to run like an efficient business, we need successful businessmen and businesswomen; we need an accountant; and we need a social scientist on the Town Board.

Our agenda stays the same: smaller and efficient town government; smarter development, with no vacant buildings; adequate drainage facilities; fair and easy property assessment; retention of our youth and the educated; and integrity and a sense of economy in the functioning

of the town government. Your selected candidates should be professionals who have earned their living outside the government payroll.

Our Declaration of Independence states: "Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." This, however, is not happening in our town.

Once elected, the Town Board members pursue their own personal or partisan agenda. We must elect those who stay focused on the people's agenda.

The highway superintendent manages a budget of $25.5 million to provide the following services: traffic control, highway and residential lighting, parks, golf courses, shade trees, debris pickup and brush and weed removal, road repairs and improvement, snow removal, storm drainage, and insect control. We need a proven manager/engineer for the highway superintendent's job.

Complaining, finding faults, and blaming others are not substitutes for action. In a democracy, you, the people, have the ultimate power, and now is the time and the opportunity to exercise your power.

I invite you, appeal to you, and challenge you to run for the positions of Town Board member or highway superintendent this coming November and serve the people.

My fellow Amherstonians, good things do not happen; they are made to happen.