Jill's Journal: Showing up matters

Saturday’s District 2 Legislative candidate forum didn’t go quite as planned. And while the circumstances may have been the result of a simple scheduling mix-up, the situation left me thinking about what it means to represent the people who elect you.

The Brandon Valley Area Chamber of Commerce and the Brandon Valley Journal co-hosted the forum to give voters an opportunity to hear directly from the people asking for their votes. Republican candidates Adam Long and Manuel Luschas arrived well in advance of the start time. Democratic candidate Blake Rife was late after misreading an email about the start time.

Long and Luschas waited a good 20 minutes before leaving.

And just like that, an opportunity for voters to hear from all three candidates disappeared.

I understand that schedules get mixed up. Emails get misread. People make mistakes. It happens to the best of us. Rife’s tardiness may have been an honest mistake, and I’m not suggesting otherwise.

But I also understand that the two candidates who showed up had set aside time for the forum and ultimately chose to leave when the third candidate hadn’t arrived.

That leaves us with a couple of questions worth asking.

If elected to represent District 2 in Pierre, will Long and Luschas walk away when a situation doesn’t unfold as they expected? And will Rife show up when he needs to be there?

Those questions aren’t meant to suggest that one missed appointment defines a candidate or predicts how someone will perform in office. That would be an unfair conclusion to draw from one Saturday morning. But the circumstances do offer a reminder that public service requires patience, preparation and, above all, accountability.

These forums aren’t staged for the convenience of candidates. They are organized as a service to voters.

They give residents a chance to hear candidates explain their views, discuss the issues and respond to questions about the decisions they may be asked to make on our behalf. Those decisions affect our schools, property taxes, roads, businesses, communities and the future of South Dakota.

Voters deserve the opportunity to make informed decisions about whom they trust to represent them. That’s difficult to do when candidates aren’t all in the room.

The Chamber and the Journal, in cooperation with Sioux Valley Energy staff, where the forum was to be held, invested time and effort in organizing Saturday’s event for the benefit of the community. The voters who planned to attend deserved that opportunity, too.

Nobody expects elected officials to be perfect. But we should expect them to communicate, to be willing to work through uncomfortable situations and to remember whom they ultimately serve.

Sometimes leadership means sticking around a little longer than planned. Sometimes it means taking responsibility for a mistake and making an effort to set things right.

And sometimes, it simply means showing up.

After all, candidates are asking voters to place their trust and confidence in them. That’s a pretty big request.

Perhaps the most important question coming out of Saturday’s forum isn’t who arrived first or who left last. It’s whether all three candidates understand that the job they’re seeking is about showing up for the people they hope to represent.

Because when it comes to serving the public, showing up matters.

Editor’s note: The Journal will ask the candidates to respond to prepared questions and those submitted by the public in the Oct. 21 issue.