The city council made the right decision

New Prague’s elected mayor in 2026 will serve for four years after the city council adjusted the mayor’s term from two to four years at its Oct. 21 meeting.

That’s a wise decision for a couple of reasons. First of all, a two-year term flies by, especially for people willing to mix service to community with a full-time job and family. From how to run a meeting, work with city staff, get to know other mayors in neighboring communities to learn from their successes and mistakes, it can take a person a year or more to figure out how the mayor’s position actually works. After a year, a mayor who wants to keep the job needs to be mindful of reelection.

Winning re-election can be challenging. Even a popular mayor, someone who has done almost everything correctly can find keeping the job difficult if a tough issue, say a proposed apartment complex abatement, comes up. It only takes one misstep to nix 18 months of good work and leadership.

Communities in this area are fortunate. New Prague and its neighbors for the most part have solid, level-headed mayors, people who look at the big picture. Do they sometimes make mistakes, annoy a short-sighted section of the local electorate even when the big-picture solution is the right thing to do? Sure, but at the local level, our mayors work hard to do the right thing on complicated issues.

Congratulations It is with an overwhelming sigh of relief we all celebrate the completion of an election season. You may now go about your daily dinner hour free of the mind-numbing barrage of state, regional and national candidate advertising. Now all we need are the winners to tactfully thank those who supported them, offer the obligatory promise to get to work and keep the promises of the campaign. Those who came up short should accept the will of the voters and graciously step back, think about why their message didn’t resonate with enough voters and ponder what might have been.

If only that would be the case.

Based on history, it is reasonable to suspect one side of the ideological spectrum might, depending on the outcome, claim the outcome was suspicious. This is especially true when its candidate has suggested any unfavorable results are rigged. Throughout the campaign, there were suspicions, not-so-subtle whispers, of concerns of voter fraud and irregularities caused by alleged voter fraud. Atop the hill on the east side of Highway 21, a homemade sign indicates the candidate’s campaign is too big to rig.

Over 60 courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court have ruled there is not enough evidence to prove the outcome of the last election dishonest. This comes even though two years ago the state Republican Party planned to have its delegates vote electronically. And we all watched in horror as a mob, arguably incited by the former president, breached the U.S. Capitol to try and interrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power.

That kind of thing happens at the national, the federal level, fortunately. Here, our elections are far more passive. Some might even call them boring. We had candidate forums, but hardly anything resembling a giveand-take debate. Candidates present their views to questions and the voters decide what they like.

There may be calls to end absentee voting by mail, a process rural voters grew to enjoy during the pandemic. Absentee voting in person is awfully convenient. Sunday morning in Belle Plaine, area residents voted absentee in-person. City staffers operated the polling station in the council chambers. Any end to absentee voting, either inperson or by mail, will not be well-received. It’s just to easy and convenient and as far as we know, safe.

Congratulations on surviving another campaign season. We now return you to a life without people who want to lead your country yelling at each other.