‘Leadership Crisis’ : Small-Town Elections: Few Takers

By all accounts, this year’s local election here was a memorable event.

A March storm roared off the ocean, draping thick ice on the scallop boats and lobster traps. Snowplows struggled to clear the town road, which winds past the Odd Fellows Hall and up a steep hill to the high school.

Still, elections are a special obligation, and more than 360 voters--nearly half those registered--dutifully trudged through the drifts to cast ballots for new leaders to guide and administer their proud New England fishing town for another year.

There was only one problem.

“Nobody ran for anything,” said Town Manager Roger Stone. “Nobody had filed for election.”

After several hours of confusion and cajoling, volunteers were found and duly elected on write-in ballots to serve as town clerk, school board member and selectmen. The sanitary board wasn’t so easy. Voters wrote in 52 names for the four open seats. They weren’t enough.

Half the Names Called

“I probably called half the names,” said Betty Billings, the $250-a-year town clerk. “Only one person said yes. None of the rest would take it.”

“Most of them didn’t give reasons,” she added. “They just said: ‘No way.’ ”

America may be facing a bumper crop of presidential contenders in the 1988 election (15 are actively campaigning, while 147 have filed with the Federal Election Commission), but a surprising number of other Americans are saying ‘no way’ to local elected office these days.

Towns as diverse as Ramsey, Ill., Cold Brook, N.Y., Fountain City, Wis., Ogunquit, Me., Merrill, Mich., Sheakleyville, Pa., and Morrison, Tenn., have held elections with no candidates at all, or with reluctant draftees at best. Oklahoma officials canceled scores of elections last spring, citing too few candidates and too little interest.

“It’s pretty common here, and it’s getting worse,” said Donald C. Rider, executive director of the Oklahoma Municipal League, a nonprofit association of 366 cities and towns. “We had 500 towns that were supposed to have elections. In 200, no elections were held because no one filed for office or there was no contest.”

Problem on Rise

No national figures are available, but state officials and political scientists agree the lack of local leadership appears on the rise. They say the total is still relatively small, but serious for the towns involved.

“I think it means a leadership crisis for those communities directly affected,” said Alvin D. Sokolow, a political scientist at the University of California, Davis, who has studied the problem. “For them, it is a crisis that affects how the towns work, how services are provided, how growth is directed.”

“It’s a very real problem,” agreed Leslie Dach, special assistant to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which has held hearings on problems in small-town America. “There’s an absence of leadership at the same time local leaders are faced with more and more difficult problems.”

With 60 million Americans--one out of every four--living in rural areas, America remains a nation of small towns, and small-town politics. Most elected officials--an estimated 400,000--serve in small-town America.

The U.S. Treasury Department recognizes 39,527 incorporated governments, from tiny townships to sprawling counties. Of these, 28,484 serve populations under 3,000. And fully half--19,715 local governments in all--serve populations under 1,000.

Small-town elections are often informal affairs, with barbershops replacing smoke-filled rooms as the crucible of candidates.

So why are fewer citizens participating?

The answers appear as varied as the towns themselves. Experts cite changing demographics, the explosion in lawsuits and jury awards, more complex demands of local office, and the hard choices that local officials increasingly must make with shrinking budgets.

‘It’s Not Fun’

“It’s not fun to be on the city council when your primary order of business is firing employees, cutting services and raising local taxes,” said Gary Markenson, executive director of the Missouri Municipal League, which represents 508 municipalities in the state.

“It’s very intense being a local official,” agreed Beverly Nykwest, spokeswoman for the National Assn. of Towns and Townships in Washington, D.C., which represents 13,000 communities across the country.

“People call you at home at night to complain,” she said. “If they don’t like something, they tell you to your face. Plus, you make decisions that affect your families, friends and neighbors.”

When the association held a conference for 550 local officials last September, the most popular session was not about federal grants or traffic control. “It was a workshop on stress,” she said. When the officials were polled, Nykwest added, 14% said they would not run for reelection because of burnout.

Some problems are endemic. Federal and state environmental laws regulating sewage, garbage and landfills are increasingly complex. Hours are long. Local expectations are high. Pay is minimal. And fear of lawsuits is widespread.

“I think people just don’t want to ask for trouble,” said John Lamb, executive vice president of the Municipal Research Center in Seattle. “People read about liability. They read about lawsuits. They read about public disclosure of personal assets. They don’t want to get involved.”

Economy a Factor

The economy is also a factor. In the Midwest, the farm crisis has uprooted families, closed banks and shattered local institutions. Business leaders have left. Even volunteer fire departments have lost members.

“Small-town America is suffering,” said Nancy Brown, a Kansas state legislator and head of the Kansas Assn. of Townships. The elimination of federal revenue-sharing funds last year hit especially hard, she said. “Local officials just don’t have the funds anymore to do the job. That’s very frustrating. So they don’t get much personal satisfaction in the job.”

Such problems are common in depressed oil, lumber, textile, mining and coal towns. “You’ve got to stick your neck out running for office,” said Roy Dugger, head of the American Assn. of Small Cities, based in De Leon, Tex. “People say: ‘Why should I run?’ ”

In New England, by contrast, prosperity near Boston has led to rapid growth and development in once-sleepy farming towns in southern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Local zoning, sewage and schools are in the spotlight. And local officials are in the hot seat.

Too Much Aggravation

“You put in a lot of time, and you get a lot of grief,” said Mike Starn, spokesman for the Maine Municipal Assn., which assists 495 communities. “Land use and planning are much more complex, much more technical. It’s not just five or six building permits a year, but 100 or 200. . . . Some people say it’s just not worth the aggravation.”

“Governing a small town is tougher than it used to be,” agreed Norman Reid, who studies rural business and government for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Thirty years ago, a lot of these places didn’t have sewer systems. Now they have the EPA breathing down their necks.”

Beverly Cigler, professor of political science and public administration at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C., notes that Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter campaigned for the presidency on anti-Washington, anti-government platforms.

“That has an effect,” she said. “If the President beats on government, it makes people think twice. So they beat on government too.”

Changing Demographics

Changing demographics are also a factor. Families with two working parents are less likely to give up family time for public service than traditional families. In addition, more retirees are moving away from the towns where they grew up and had roots. Commuters are even more mobile.

“We no longer have the kind of situation of 20 or 30 years ago where generation after generation lived in the community, and there was a feeling of real investment there,” said Dan Soyer, spokesman for the Massachusetts Municipal Assn., which has 350 members.

Even with the problems, local government rarely just stops. In Arkansas, as in many other states, the state constitution provides that officials serve until a successor is duly elected and qualified.

“The courts have interpreted that to mean if no one else is elected, the previous office holder stays on another term,” said Don Zimmerman, executive director of the Arkansas Municipal League. “Sometimes it’s easier to get these jobs than to get rid of them.”

In some towns, getting the job couldn’t be simpler.

“Nobody else was interested,” said Gene Etchason, 45, mayor of Ramsey, Ill., recalling his election last April. “I figured somebody had to do it.”

Ramsey, population 1,058 and surrounded by corn and soybean fields, is a tough place to be mayor. Ten of 13 filling stations have closed. So have two of the three barber shops, two grocery stores, the Chevrolet dealer and a farm implements showroom. The six-member board of trustees had 13 new faces in a year. Everyone else resigned because of poor health or opportunities elsewhere.

No Compliments

“You don’t ever get any compliments,” Etchason said of his $100-a-month part-time job. “Nobody ever tells you when you do something good. They just complain when you do something bad. You make a mistake, and they’re all ready to tell you about it.”

No one wanted the mayor’s job in Cold Brook, N.Y., a village with 405 residents and a $26,000 annual budget in the rugged foothills of the Adirondacks. But when the state threatened to send in an administrator, factory manager and village newcomer Jack Nelson gritted his teeth and volunteered. The part-time job pays $400 a year.

“Jeez, there’s a lot of paper work,” Nelson said after four months in office. “There’s garbage problems, fire problems, lighting problems. There’s a myriad of odds and ends. Now I know why no one else wanted it.”

“It’s not fun,” agreed Sally Nelson, the mayor’s wife and village clerk, treasurer and tax collector. “It’s hard work.”

Here in Stonington, where nobody ran for the eight seats open last March 2, politics were the problem. A former town manager had hired his son as police chief and tempers had flared. The town had been sued. Selectmen got death threats. Calls for a new sewage system and for a moratorium on growth were overshadowed.

“People just didn’t want to get involved,” said Town Manager Stone. “They just weren’t interested.”