Signing In

[kevin_standlee]

Conveniently, there is a sign shop just a block away from my house. I took delivery on the first campaign sign for my run for the North Lyon County FPD on Friday.



I'm holding this sign nearly in the same spot where the photo on the sign was taken of me. I note, however, that the photo I use on the sign was taken before Lisa repainted the trellis.

For whatever reason, the people organizing local candidate forums ignored the Fire Board candidates. I've seen no campaign information for any of the other six candidates, very likely for the same reason I can't put a lot of resources into it: the job pays nothing at all. It's very much like my other hobbies, particularly SF fandom.

I have one more sign on order, made to fit an existing empty metal frame in front of Hanneman's (now closed) Car Wash. (Their tow/repair/propane service is still open, but the owner told me that revenue wasn't even covering the water connection fees, so they shut it down.) The sign I'm holding above was originally going to go in front of the car wash until Lisa spotted the frame, but it needed a custom size as the frame is 34.5 inches square. In the meantime, I've secured permission from another business to post the above sign on their fence along with all of the other signs from candidates for city council, mayor, and county commissioner (all of which are somewhat higher stakes, and even the least of which pays a few thousand dollars per year).

This afternoon, Lisa and I went over to Lowe's and bought a small sheet of plywood, to which we will mount this foam-core sign lest it blow away in the high winds for which Fernley is prone (including today) before we go attach it to the fence over at the 76 Gas Station & Deli.

As a bonus, I found that the 76 has several cans of the Evil Dill Pickle Pringles that I like but that I can rarely find in stores. I think I'll buy the rest of their stock when I go over there to put up this sign tomorrow.

Comments

[solarbird]

So this is the first one, and the second one will be the... end of the run? So... two signs.

That's some high stakes right there. :D

[kevin_standlee]

That is, however, two more signs than I've observed from any of the other six candidates. I took a drive around the city over the major roads and could see no other signs for the office for which I'm running. The incumbent Mayor, however, has signs all over the place. If I see an opportunity to post more signs and decide I can afford it, I may have another couple made. But I haven't been soliciting contributions, because if I did, I'd have to open a campaign bank account and engage in more financial reporting. It's hard to figure whether it's worth it for such small amounts of money.

I can't build up much enthusiasm for the county-level races. Nevada's county commissioners (what I would call the "Board of Supervisors" because I grew up in California) are partisan offices, and my party doesn't have any candidates running at all. That is, the Republican primary is effectively the election, and I can't vote on it anyway. (Well, there might be a candidate from the AIP, which is the party that apparently considers the Republicans to be Commie Pinko Liberal Traitors, sigh.)

I don't think any governmental positions below state (i.e. assembly, senate, governor, etc.) should be partisan. Local issues should be local IMO. As I've said in other places, when it comes to keeping our fire department running, I'm a member of the Fernley Party, and my motto is TANSTAAFL: If you want the fire department to come and save you when your home catches fire or you have a medical emergency, you had better be prepared to pay for it.

(And it's really very little; I can read my property tax bills. The current annual fire rate is only $0.30 per $100 assessed value. But that's why there are only four full-time fire professionals on duty at any time for a city of 20,000 people.)

[solarbird]

A lot of our below-state-level offices are non-partisan, and I completely agree. They're allowed to state political affiliation, though, and they tend to put it in the voter's guide. So.

[garyomaha]

As is my style, I shall take a secondary point of your post and comment on it. I've always been fascinated by car washes, though I understand how weather can really wreak havoc with the whole business plan. When I was a teen, a friend's parents ran a small car wash as a side project and that's as close as I got to one. Over the years, car washes have tended to go in two directions: the plain vanilla ones with do-it-yourself hoses and 25 cent coin boxes, and the flashy (literally, with lots of lights) car washes with all sorts of bells and whistles and no need to leave one's car at all. Knowing how I like flashing lights, guess which one I prefer? We sat in a Kansas City parking lot once just watching a fancy-schmancy car wash do its thing (one entire wall was clear and very good advertising for the enterprise). So, I'm sorry to see the Fernley car wash not be a going concern. Perhaps a few flashing lights might help?

[kevin_standlee]

As it happens, the now-closed Hanneman Car Wash was the former (simple coin-op). Just down the street, there is another car wash that already had a somewhat fancier (more options) coin-op, and they installed the latter type of flashier automatic car wash as well. That's probably a contributing factor to why the Hanneman family elected to close their simple wash.

One good thing about the installation of the fancy wash is that it also led to the paving of a sidewalk in front of it, which means there is a continuous paved sidewalk all the way down to Big R Ranch & Home supply, and that's useful for Lisa and me generally.