Council districts issue should have gone on Everett ballot

I am disappointed over the City Council’s decision to not put voting by districts on the November ballot. The council may have been right not to accept the specific Everett Districts Now proposal, but they could have put the principle of including voting by districts as well as at large on the ballot.

While I applaud the council’s support for greater citizen education and participation, including work with the League of Women Voters and the NAACP, and its support for a voter registration drive in areas of the city where there is less participation, I believe putting the issue of voting by districts on this November’s ballot would have complimented and reinforced these efforts.

I remember in Selma, Alabama in 1965 how the campaign to open the voting system to black citizens went hand in hand with South Christian Leadership Council’s efforts at citizenship education. In Everett, currently, opening the system of voting for City Council members to allow voting by districts, which means more candidates would reside and be better known in more different local neighborhoods, goes hand-in-hand with citizen education efforts.

Ron Young

Everett