Your ballot arrives this week. Before you open it, here is what I would like you to know.
What I did this year
I have lived in the Heights for more than twenty-five years. This year I knocked on [FILL: door count] doors here.
Most of them belonged to people who will not vote for me. I knocked anyway, because that is the job. Every door I missed got a postcard in my handwriting saying I came by and I would still like to hear what is on their mind. Some people wrote back. A few invited me for coffee. One or two argued with me for half an hour on their own front step and then shook my hand.
That is a neighborhood. It is the thing worth having, and we still have it.
What I heard
Property taxes that keep climbing, and relief that came with a form some people never found.
A school where the bullying is not getting handled, and a parent who called and emailed and asked a specific question about their own child and never got an answer.
A power bill people are watching nervously while a company from out of state asks for thousands of megawatts, with the contract blacked out and the decisions moved to Helena.
A clinic too far away, and a wait too long.
A promise to a retired teacher that somebody in Helena would like to quietly forget.
An elderly neighbor going hungry.
A disabled worker, “laid off” and overlooked on new applications.
None of that is a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. It is a Heights problem. And all of it has solutions.
Why me
I fix things for a living. I have run a small business here since 2001, which means twenty-five years of making payroll, keeping promises that cost money, and getting told no on a Tuesday.
I serve on a disability-led board where the people affected direct the work, and where I am regularly the least expert person in the room. That has been good for me.
I am working with the Heights Business Association to build a TIF district, so this part of town stops getting skipped when the money gets handed out.
None of that is a political résumé. It is the reason I think I can do this job.
What the job actually is
I will not promise you outcomes. One legislator is one vote out of a hundred, and anyone telling you otherwise at your door is hoping you will not check.
What I will promise is the part that is entirely mine to give. I will listen first. I will show up. I will tell you when I disagree with you, at your door, to your face, the way I have all year.
Solving one person’s problem is a good day. Figuring out what keeps causing it and fixing that is a better one. That is the whole reason I want this job.
Either way
Whether or not you vote for me, I will still be your neighbor on November 4, and you will still be my constituent. That does not change based on how you fill out a ballot.
Government belongs to us. We reclaim it when we show up.
Your ballot is in the mail. Please fill it out, sign the envelope, and send it back.
Chip in at smithformontana.com/donate