Lackawanna County voters face major choices about the future of their county government in the primary election Tuesday, but their choices about governments closer to home are fewer than four years ago.
Only about one in five of the nominations for mayor, borough or city council, township supervisor, tax collector and school director in Lackawanna (21.1 percent) and Luzerne (22.1 percent) counties is contested.
That means more than three quarters of the nominations are either uncontested - in other words, have as many candidates as nominations available - or have no candidates at all.
Four years ago - an equivalent election - about 30 percent of the nominations in each county were contested.
The numbers would be even worse if municipal auditor and controller seats were included in the totals because many municipalities have no candidates for those jobs.
"Clearly, people today are even more stressed than they were four years ago," said Thomas J. Baldino, Ph.D., a political science professor at Wilkes University. "Potential candidates have way too much on their plates. Many people are working two jobs or their jobs demand much more time and to take time to do public service is much more difficult ... And you also have families where both members of the family are working."
Dr. Baldino and others said the tough economic times are making running a local government less appealing because local governments also have less money.
"When budgets are tight, people (elected officials) are forced to make very difficult decisions," he said. "The public wants services continued or they want more service and there's less money to provide those services. So the people who occupy the elected positions are always under pressure and it's not any fun."
Lackawanna County Democratic Party Chairman Harry McGrath attributed the lower interest in running for office to the difficulty in raising money to campaign and "the toll it extracts on your personal life."
"The economy's bad, it's difficult to pay the taxes, you run for office, you have to raise the taxes, you make decisions that impact people's support systems and the resources provided by state or local government which aren't there," Mr. McGrath said. "It's very difficult in this community, because I think this community due to its (poorer) socio-economic profile, including age, is one that's become dependent perhaps, moreso than others, on government. And all of sudden, if you're a government, you're reducing the services that a person literally grew up with. All of a sudden, you're cut off and do you want to be that person responsible for cutting them off?"
Ozzie Quinn, president of the Scranton and Lackawanna County Taxpayers Association, blamed the declining influence of and disgust with the two major political parties for discouraging many people from running for office. Plus, with budgets squeezed, the ability for a public official to hand out jobs to family or friends is diminished, he said.
State Sen. John Yudichak, D-14, Plymouth Twp., said governing local boroughs, townships and cities is harder because state government is providing local municipalities less financial help. That is discouraging potential candidates.
His father, Joseph, a Plymouth Twp. supervisor, wanted to step aside, but couldn't find anybody to replace him. He is running unopposed.
"He was trying to drum up folks to run for the job, but you just don't have anybody stepping up because these jobs are so challenging," John Yudichak said.
Interestingly, the percentages of contested school board nominations are significantly higher - more than one in three (36.4 percent) in Lackawanna County and almost two in three (64.4 percent) in Luzerne County. Unlike municipal officials, school directors receive no pay for serving.
"That is the enigma of enigmas," Mr. McGrath said.
"That's hard to understand because my experience is that they're the toughest jobs in politics," Mr. Yudichak said.
Mr. Quinn had a simple explanation.
"Because I think the school board has more hirings than anybody else," he said.
Dr. Baldino agreed, but said school boards could be going through a generational clash.
"There may be more competition for school board because there's the old guard who views the world (as one of patronage) ... and - I know this from my own school board - there's a slate of people running to unseat the old guard because they don't want the politics as usual where the school board rewards friends, family and neighbors with positions in the school district," Dr. Baldino said.
Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com