Elections with love

I was happy to see that Boulder City is going to have an election that provides time for both communicating as well as understanding. It is unresolved until Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. Choices for city council should never be ignored or hurried. Our duty as citizens is to objectively apply the best information we have to decide for whom to vote.

I might have a more experienced opinion since I was a member of the Boulder City Council from 1985 to 1997, having been appointed twice as mayor.

I recall desiring to have more citizens have an awareness of what it is like to be on the city council. I had my wish granted in 1997 when I lost that race. I want to thank the current city council while thanking those who are interested in serving their city by becoming council members. I appreciate your desire to serve Boulder City as well as Clark County and Nevada. It’s a much more difficult as well as time-consuming job than most citizens recognize.

The voters don’t always seem to understand what it is that we are attempting to do while we are on city council, do they? I was usually focused on attempting to give the citizens what they wanted as long as it did not set a precarious precedent for the governance of our city. I knew that when I purchased the Eldorado Valley in 1995 that it would be a controversial decision. Very few citizens understood why anyone would add 168 square miles to a city of 31.

I imagine that there is still a mystery around that purchase. Fortunately, the citizens of our community began to comprehend the vision I had while purchasing the Valley. Boulder City is surrounded by Spirit Mountain National Monument, Lake Mead National Recreation Area as well as wilderness areas reinforcing the value of Boulder City’s quality of life. One thing to recall, the people of Boulder City are your audience. It’s therefore best that they understand you.

I do realize that my preference for communication functions best in person. Until my final election in 1997, the internet wasn’t applied as much to our elections. I walked door to door in the elections, enjoying the various citizens of Boulder City. Many people now make all kinds of decisions based on information arising from the internet, don’t they?

Pause before using the internet to communicate in the future since the internet is full of nonsensical information, isn’t it? Furthermore, over 90% of any shared meaning arises from body language as well as tone of voice. That statistic was derived by UCLA Professor Emeritus Albert Mehrabian from his 1971 book “Silent Messages”. Wouldn’t it therefore improve understandings by talking to people more in person? We all have an improved capability of making decisions regarding people when we interact with them in person with love, don’t we?

I initiated my quest for understanding relations better in the 1990s with “A Course in Miracles”. The teachings imply that people require other people interacting in person with love to fully communicate. Aren’t we disregarding the value of human beings when we fail to resolve understandings in person? I have developed information over time as president of the Aquarian Theosophy Foundation that can be of value. I initially began by attempting to improve my methods of relating to others. Among other information concerning consciousness, I’ve also found that we make our best decisions with others by interacting in person with love. I define love as acceptance with as little judgment as possible.

While running for city council, I did not debase the elections of Boulder City by smearing or denigrating other candidates. I mostly attempted to represent myself. I kept reminding myself that I was running for an office, not running against anyone in particular. Perhaps that was the reason I was also selected twice by the city council to be our mayor.

We now have a more competitive process to select our mayor, don’t we? Unlike the selection of city council members, we will always have one person opposing another when we select the mayor in a general election. Following my leaving city council, a citizens referendum decided that voters could select the mayor instead of allowing the city council to choose the chairman in 1999. I noticed that following that decision, city staff was eliminated from the front of the room while being relegated to tables below the city council dais.

Thank you to all who enjoy friendly Boulder City as our home. Regardless of your position in life, enjoy our election for city council more with love.