In every election cycle, HeadspringIS.com does what small-town papers have done for generations: we send the same set of straightforward questions to every candidate for the village board of trustees. We ask about local issues and how they plan to keep our villages and townships affordable for the families who live here. The tradition is simple and time-honored. Candidates answer in their own words. We print every response side by side so voters can compare ideas without spin or sound bites.
This year, no candidate responded to the Village of Scandinavia trustee position questionnaire. No response from Mike Hayes, Daniel Koehler, both incumbents, and Michael Schroeder.
Some will say it’s no big deal. Campaigns are busy. Maybe the candidates worry that somebody will twist their words. Maybe they prefer door-to-door chats or social-media posts. Those are understandable pressures. Perhaps they all prefer other channels of communication. But when every single person running for the same office chooses silence, something deeper is happening.
Refusing to answer a shared questionnaire is not neutral. It is a choice. It tells us that these candidates value control over conversation. It tells us they are more comfortable asking for our votes than explaining what they will do once they have them. It suggests they see voters less as partners in self-government and more as an audience to be managed. A candidate who will not commit their views to a newspaper or news source is, in effect, asking us to trust them with our tax dollars, our streets, and our future sight unseen.
When the silence is unanimous, the problem grows larger than any single person. It suggests a culture in our village government that has grown comfortable behind closed doors. If all candidates for the board that makes the decisions affecting our water bills, our parks, and our property values refuse to engage in the most basic act of democratic accountability, what does that say about the body they hope to join? It says the board has come to view itself as a private club rather than a public trust.
We should feel concerned. We should feel it keenly. Local government is not distant or abstract. The decisions made in that small meeting room shape the pothole on your street, the size of your tax bill, and whether your neighbor can build a house that blocks your sunlight. When candidates at this level slam the door on questions, they are telling us they prefer to govern without the full light of public scrutiny. That should alarm every one of us who cares about our villages and townships.
Democracy does not require perfection. It does require willingness. It requires candidates who believe their ideas can stand on their own and who trust their neighbors enough to share them.
So here is the question we should all carry into the voting booth: If they will not answer us now, when they need our votes, why should we believe they will listen once they are in office? Our villages and townships are best governed when they are open. The candidates who want to lead us should prove they still believe that. Until they do, the silence they have chosen will speak louder than any answer they refused to give.
