Tuesday evening we’ll know who will be elected to serve the next four years as mayor and city council for the cities of Selma, Valley Grande and Orrville. As with most elections, this one has had its share of truth, half-truths and outright fabrications, but such is part of the political process as people and political organizations jockey for representation.

Certainly these elections are important to all of us and to the future of our community, but not everyone’s candidate is going to win. This election will come and go, people will take their seats in the city council chambers and life will go on. Will things be better or worse the next four years? I don’t have a crystal ball, but what I can tell you – what I really believe in my heart – is that regardless of who wins or loses, no one person [or two or three] have the ability to make or break us. To me, it all boils down to one question: What are we [all of us] going to do, regardless of who wins or loses, to make things better in Dallas County for our children and ourselves?

Certainly there are many opportunities to do that, and our elected officials are crucial cogs on the wheel of progress, but you know as well as I that if we all just pulled together, it wouldn’t matter who our elected officials were.

More could be accomplished if people quit complaining about “how bad things are here,” which by the way they’re not, and did something about whatever it is they think is bad.

Certainly there are opportunities for improvement, such as finding a cooperative solution to end the ruckus at Selma city council meetings, and I expect voters will repair some of that situation Tuesday, but the solution is not going to be perfect. Some things are going to remain broken until somebody, and not necessarily our elected officials, step up and do something about it.

Selma is a beautiful, historical city with more potential than anywhere in this region, but sometimes people let this city’s history get in the way of this city’s future. They live in the past and blame others for their lot in life when the reality is in today’s world there are no more excuses for not being able to make your dreams come true. The hardest part of getting anything done is making the decision to do it. Everything that follows that first, crucial step is easy.

So when the polls close Tuesday and the votes are tallied, if your candidate isn’t the one smiling, you owe it to yourself, your family and your community to do the right thing. And that “thing” is more than just spending the next four years complaining.