... decide to vote

Just a year ago, North Carolina voters trooped to the polls and in a record turnout gave Barack Obama a razor-thin win here, helping him gain the presidency. There's no White House at stake in today's local elections across the state, but the results will be significant. From property taxes to trash pickups, from school policies to street repairs, ground-level elected officeholders have a big say about how we live our everyday lives. Voter apathy? It may be typical in off-year, local elections, but it's never welcome.

Beyond the high-profile District 2 school board runoff in Wake County, voters in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district also will fill school board seats, and in the Triangle and surrounding counties dozens of towns have races for mayor and municipal councils. Those include Carrboro and Chapel Hill (where there's a lively mayoral contest involving use of some public campaign financing), and Durham, where incumbent mayor Bill Bell is up for another term (his challenger is Steven Williams).

In Wake County there's a second runoff election, this one for the District A seat on the Cary Town Council. The candidates there are Lori Bush and incumbent Jennifer Robinson, with growth policies a key issue. And for Wake residents in incorporated areas, the listings include an A-to-Z menu of mayoral and council races - in Apex, Fuquay-Varina, Garner, Holly Springs, Knightdale, Morrisville, Rolesville, Wake Forest, Wendell and Zebulon.

Speaking of incorporated areas, there's an election of special note in Johnston County. Residents of the Archer Lodge community, northeast of Clayton, will vote on whether to make their home a municipality - the Town of Archer Lodge, population about 3,000.

If they do, before long the Archer Lodgers will be voting, along with everyone else, for mayors and council members. Let's hope they show the rest of us how to turn out.

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