This year’s election for town council members in Windham is more important than ever for the future of the town. Although I am enthralled with history and have way more than a half-century of experience in my hometown, it is the future about which I am concerned. Many other residents feel the same way, especially the older citizens.

Councilors and council candidates should realize that Windham has an extremely high percentage of older (I prefer the term “mature”) citizens, without children and with economic issues to face, like lack of affordable housing, jobs, transportation, worries about fuel and food. But we are also the ones you can depend on to vote. And we’re smart enough to see through rhetoric.

When I’m not working and I wander around town at my usual haunts, I hear people of all ages express their concerns about “what is going to happen.” They, too, have been watching the council and listening to the unveiled insinuations from some council members, voicing their frustrations at the way things were done in the past and their grandiose plans for the future. Some of us are getting quite upset with the idea that what we have done so far does not measure up. Some are afraid of losing their job.

People in general are worried about the basic things, like cost of heating fuel, food, gasoline, and housing. Of course, keeping taxes down is part of that.

However, this is not the time to begin an overhaul of what has obviously worked for decades. Do these visionaries telling us what’s wrong with the way we’ve run our town think we, their constituents, are so naA? ?ve that we cannot see the power play being established or that reinventing the town will cost us all?

It is clear to most of us that the rude antagonizing of council leadership is an attempt to disparage the more moderate and focus attention elsewhere.

If recent budget deliberations, with an attempt to basically fire a town employee on television, are an example of what we can expect, then I think we each need to get out and vote for candidates with experience, intelligence and the ability to think through an issue. They need to be able to make thoughtful, informed decisions that are good for the community. The town council establishes policy; it is not a personnel department. Or should I say human resources?

Go vote and go to town meeting. See you next week.

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