EDITORIALS:Initiative is up to the voters

This past week, post-Labor Day, marked the unofficial start to the fall election season. Anyone who has been following city politics knows that in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach, there is much at stake when voters cast their ballots in November — or mail their absentee ones in even earlier.

With so much on the line, it is crucial that voters do what they can to become educated about the issues — whether it be Costa Mesa’s plan to enforce immigration laws, which is a central topic in that election, or Newport Beach’s proposed update to its general plan and the competing slow-growth Greenlight II initiative — and about the candidates who are running for office.

It won’t be an easy job, unfortunately. The difficulty, boiled down, is twofold.

First, a realistic one. People are busy. There are children’s athletic and school events. There is work. There are chores. There are the thousands of little things that fill our days. Adding into it the time it takes to become truly informed about issues and candidates is asking quite a bit.

But, nevertheless, that is what we’re doing. Voters need to know who and what they are voting on in this election.

In Costa Mesa, a council with Bruce Garlich or Mike Scheafer will make quite different decisions from one with Allan Mansoor and Wendy Leece. Do you know why? If not, you need to learn, and then vote for which candidates align with your beliefs.

In Newport Beach, as many as six new people could end up on the dais. Denial of the general plan, which governs development in the city, will make for a host of issues and problems in City Hall. The approval of the Greenlight II initiative, which would limit development, would raise a whole list of other ones.

The second reason it will be difficult for people to become educated about the issues already may have appeared in mailboxes across Newport-Mesa: mailers.

The lifeblood of politicking, mailers are high-impact, slick marketing tools that, naturally, have all the limits of such marketing devices.

They quickly sum up a candidate’s positions, wax patriotic about their achievements and otherwise not-so-neatly sum up why the person deserves votes.

At some point, the mailers attacking other candidates will appear, as well. These pieces are often overwhelming in number and numbing in their content. They bring down the political discourse. Though some certainly are considered and full of meaningful information, it is up to voters to pick the useful ones from the bad. Again, not an easy task.

But, again, we ask voters to look beyond the flash and the flair of political marketing and do the research — go on the Internet, talk to trusted neighbors or, dare we suggest, read the newspaper — that it takes to be well informed when it comes time to vote.

If you do the research, we promise you will find out that, indeed, your vote will matter in the Costa Mesa and Newport Beach elections.