A Poem on Door-to-Door Campaigning

I have now finished!  I am all done!

Over three thousand houses, all in Ward One!

Oh, the doorbells I've rung and the dogs I've petted;

All those sweet old ladies -- the nicest I've metted!

We've had good talks about this and that,

and no one ever said "Hey you, just scat!"

So I'd like to thank all who listened politely,

And tell you a tidbit I learned, and not lightly:

The trick to campaigning door-to-door

is knowing when to shut up and not be a bore.

(with apologies to Mrs. Babb, my AP English teacher at Broomfield High School)

I want to talk to you about my son, my father, and fiscal responsibility.  

My father was born just in the nick of time for the Great Depression to blow into town with the dust storms in eastern Colorado.  At age seven his father died suddenly, plunging the family into abject poverty.  They moved to Boulder with not much more than the clothes they wore, but by working hard and carefully managing money, his mother put all four kids through college.

Growing up, Dad learned "the hard way" to spend money wisely, and that habit still serves him well.  His favorite place to shop is the local garage sale.  He runs all of the household expenses through his credit card just to rack up the awards, but of course pays it off every month.  You see, he knows that just because you have money doesn't mean you have to spend it.

Recently my teenager and I went shopping to celebrate a couple of events.  He'd been paid and I'd earned a commission; he wanted a DVD and I wanted a new laptop--not that I needed one, but I sure wanted one.

So off we went, fully intending to spend "big." My boy gleefully headed to the DVD aisle, while I went to try out the laptops. The one I wanted was sleek and shiny. So much memory! Such a big screen! Such a . . . HUGE price tag! 

I glanced at my boy putting a DVD back, and decided maybe I didn't need quite so much memory, or such a large screen. Surely those changes would be . . . well, not much cheaper. I pondered for a while, and he pondered for a while.

You know where this is headed. We eventually left without having spent a penny. Neither one of us could justify spending so much money on things we really didn't need. Just the same, it was a bit deflating--after all, neither one of us had our new toys.

On the way home, I said, simply, "Well, rats." My son sighed in agreement and then, in a fit of teenage brilliance, he said, "I blame Grandpa."

I'm no financial expert, but if revenues drop, spending must be cut and the budget must be balanced--never mind what the federal government does, at the city level, that's the way it is.

The City needs to learn a lesson from Grandpa, too, and cut discretionary spending (e.g. the travel budget). We need to delay capital improvements projects.  And, of course, we need to find ways to cut costs without cutting services.

This isn't rocket science. Household budget common sense works with the City budget as well.   I said I wasn't a financial expert.  However, in our household, we owe nothing on cars, nothing on credit cards, and nothing on our house. Maybe that does make me a financial expert.

If so, I blame Grandpa.

For more information, please visit my website at www.LizInWard1.com.