Vote tomorrow

If you live in Lawrence, your vote tomorrow can determine what kind of town we live in...do we want to be a suburb of Kansas City with a dying downtown, overbuilt bix box retail, and a few extra Wal-Mart's for good measure...or do we want to keep Lawrence looking and feeling like, well, Lawrence, with a lively downtown, good neighborhoods, and justice for gay and lesbian couples via a domestic partner registry?

I am voting for three candidates who have shown a dedication to keeping Lawrence as the livable place it is today:

Carey Maynard-Moody

David Schauner

Dennis "Boog" Highberger

As a side note, a fourth candidate, James Bush, has come out in favor of the DP registry; however, I am choosing not to vote for him since has has been endorsed by the Lawrence Board of Realtors, a group which makes money on cancer-like growth and suburban sprawl. However, Bush is certainly preferable to the final two candidates, Dever and Chestnut, both of whom have never seen an empty lot upon which a Wal Mart wouldn't look good.

For Lawrence school board, it looks like the candidates to support are (based on an NEA questionnaire which asked about providing domestic partner benefits to school staff):

Marlene Merrill
Rich Minder
Micael Pomes

Candidates Mary Loveland and Michael Machell said they were open to DP benefits, but both of them qualified their answers a bit; still, you can probably vote safely for them if you have other reasons for not voting for my three choices above.

Victor Sisk, the final candidate, said he did not know if he would support DP benefits.

UPDATE: Another reason to make sure to NOT vote for Dever and Chestnut...they both use intrusive and annoying telemarketing push polling in their campaigns.