By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Next Tuesday, Nov. 3, may be the most important day of the year for Somerville. That’s because from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m., polling places will be open across the City for our local election, with voters casting ballots for candidates hoping to serve our community. There are 24 candidates for public office, and every registered voter in the City will have the opportunity to cast a ballot in a contested race. This has significant implications for the direction of our community over the next two years, but unfortunately, too often turnout in local elections falls short. In Somerville’s last municipal election two years ago, of the city’s more than 46,000 registered voters, only a little more than 10,000 cast ballots. That’s a 22 percent turnout. Given the importance of local elections, I believe we as a community can—and must—do better.

Why are local elections so important? Any democratic election is about representation, of course, and turnout has the biggest impact on representation in local elections. As Prof. Zoltan Hajnal has pointed out, groups that are small minorities nationally can be a much larger part of the population locally. Somerville’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths and the source of much of our values, but as the non-partisan group MassVOTE points out, voters are disproportionately from higher-income households, older and more partisan. Hajnal’s research suggests that if participation of racial and ethnic groups were even across the board, local election outcomes would probably look much different with greater minority representation.

Representation matters because every person is paying for the cost of the services that the City provides. Everyone has a say in how they think their tax dollars should be spent, and so much of those tax dollars are spent locally.

Outside of health care, the biggest piece of the state budget is education—more than $7.7 billion this fiscal year—and almost three-fifths of that is Chapter 70 aid that goes directly to cities and towns for funding kindergarten through grade 12. Education funding remains the largest piece of the City budget, too, accounting for almost a third of our local spending this year. The School Committee, working with the Superintendent, sets the educational goals and policies for Somerville Public Schools. When you cast your vote for a School Committee candidate, you’re helping guide the biggest investment we make as a community, one that affects every aspect of our community, from our local economy to the crime rate.

Spending on basic and essential services is also driven locally, like fixing the roads we drive on and the underground systems that deliver our water and sewer. In 2014, state and local governments accounted for 62 percent of capital spending on transportation and infrastructure, with the federal government accounting for the remaining 38 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The difference is even more striking in the realm of infrastructure operation and maintenance—state and local governments provided 88 percent of that spending. It’s here at the local level, with City staff working with the Board of Aldermen, where we set the policy and make the decisions that deliver these basic and essential services. Voting in local elections is one of the most important ways to shape how your tax dollars fund those services.

How we budget and spend tax dollars is about more than just dollars and cents, of course. A budget is an expression of what a community values. We have to deliver basic services like drivable roads and water service, but budgets also include social and health services, investments in parks and open space, support for small businesses, and more. It’s the community that has told us this kind of spending is just as essential as repaving roads and upgrading aging water lines. And it is local officials who take these values and put them into action, having a direct impact on our quality of life.

Whether you’re a homeowner or a renter, a lifelong resident or recently settled down here, you have a stake and a say in the future of this community. Sample ballots for each ward are now available on the City Elections Department’s site at www.somervillema.gov/elections, where you can also look up your polling place. Know where you vote, read up on the candidates and issues, and make sure you get to the polls next Tuesday, Nov. 3.