quote:

Originally posted by Clamato:
How horrible? And why? Just asking those in the know. And yes, it pains me to put you in that category.

quote:

Originally posted by scribbler:
I was a member of the CBP several years ago, and I'll say that, in its defense, it was making an effort to recruit younger citizens back then; at the time I was in my late thirties, with kids in the elementary school system. I was recruited because of my age/former involvement in my school's PTA. They are - or, at least, were - a hard working, dedicated bunch of citizens. However-

I agree that the demographic of the group and its candidates still slants older, and I'm not sure if this is because older citizens are the only ones who are willing to volunteer their time, or if it's the public perception that the group is mired in the past, so nobody new even tries to volunteer. And, too, when I was a member, it was very hard for newer - you could say younger - citizens who wanted to run to get a fair hearing when they came before the nominating committee. I don't mean that people were blacklisted or anything - I just mean the makeup of the nominating committee was such that unless you had decades of experience/family in Glen Ellyn, you just weren't going to capture most of the members' attention. They'd put you on a "maybe next time, nice guy/gal" list. And I understand this, to a point; experience on some kind of civic level is always helpful. But again, you just get this repeating cycle of only the same few volunteering, or - only the same narrow demographic, and it just goes on and on.

And while I like the town meeting election in theory, in practice, again - you primarily get older citizens who have the time or are interested in coming out to spend a day at the Civic Center to listen to speeches, eat some doughnuts, and then cast a vote.

But - I bailed on the party when my writing career started taking off, and my kids got into the teenaged years, and...and....the truth is, I'm a poster child for the opinionated younger (well, relatively, anyway) citizen of this town who doesn't put her money where her mouth is. I talk a lot, but I don't do anything about it. (Except vote, of course.) So it's hard for me to malign the CBP when, after all, it's made up of people who do care a lot. Maybe they're not the most forward-thinking group in town anymore, which is a concern. But they do care, at least the people with whom I worked did.

Still, I think change is always good, and it's obvious that business as usual is not helping this village move forward in the way we all know it could.