Are We Letting Outrage Run the Election?

I'm starting to wonder if we've forgotten what a municipal election is supposed to be about.

Scroll through social media and it's easy to think the most important thing facing Welland is whatever someone is angry about that day.

An incident happens. A video gets posted. Someone says something people don't like. Someone makes a comment. Then comes the outrage, the arguments and the usual picking of sides.

And somewhere underneath all of that are the things that really require our attention.

Downtown. Housing. Roads. Infrastructure. Taxes. City services. Development. Where we're going and what kind of city we want to build.

Those things don't always make for exciting Facebook posts. They don't produce hundreds of angry comments. But they're the things that will still matter after the outrage has moved on to something else.

I'm not suggesting we ignore problems or pretend people aren't frustrated. We should listen to people. But I don't think City Hall should be run by the loudest reaction on social media.

If we're going to elect people to make decisions for the next four years, I'd like to see more conversation about solutions and less competition over who can generate the biggest reaction.

I'm not interested in adding to the noise. I'd rather talk about what comes next. And I'd like to hear what other people think Welland needs to be talking about.