This week ballots will be sent by mail to all registered voters living in the city of Grand Junction. Typically local elections see less interest and lower turnout than the larger national elections – that’s backwards.

We encourage voters to research the candidates and issues in every election and get out and vote. An informed, engaged citizenry is necessary for our democracy to function. Here in Colorado, where we have the gold standard for voting systems, there really is no excuse. It’s as easy as checking the mail, filling out your ballot and dropping it in a drop box.

Even though we think all elections are important, if you look at how they will directly affect your day-to-day life, none are more impactful than municipal elections.

Of course the president, senators and representatives are important, but for the most part the big decisions made in Washington, D.C. won’t immediately touch your life. That’s not true at the city level. The decisions city council members make can be at the neighborhood level. You only have to look at recent Board of Education decisions to see how quickly local decision-makers can change things.

We may get federal or state grants toward housing or roads, but what grants we apply for and what projects they will go toward are often decided by the city council. Add to that the quarter billion – with a B – dollars city council members will direct through our city every year with its annual budget and you start to see just how important this decision is.

Then there are often local ballot questions to consider. We have another one this year on building a community recreation center. If we choose to build it, a rec center will have huge impacts on this community for decades to come.

So, this is a big decision and one you shouldn’t sit out on. We’re also here to help you as you make your choice. We’ve met with all the candidates and will be releasing our endorsements over the next few days.

We endorse in these races not to tell you who you should vote for, but to help you make that call for yourself. We have the opportunity to speak directly with these candidates in a setting that most readers won’t. We think it is important to do that work and relay our thoughts to you on these candidates to do with as you wish.

We get a different insight from these meetings than you are likely to get from a political ad, a debate or a campaign event. We think sharing our assessment of these candidates after these meetings is useful to readers, even if you don’t ultimately vote for our recommended candidate.

It’s the responsibility of voters to research candidates, find out where they stand on issues and consider all available information before making a selection. We think The Daily Sentinel, through our news coverage, provides factual, reliable information about the campaign and the candidates.

We’ll give you the facts here as well, but as an editorial board we can give you our own opinions and analysis. This can give you a sense of a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses outside their stated policy objectives.

We’ll tell you what we think, then you decide.

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Editorial Board

Read the original article here.