It is brave to stand up in your community; to have the courage of your convictions, realising you might not be successful and not everyone will appreciate what you have to say.
It is brave because in recent years those who have the cowardice of their convictions (to mangle an expression used by award-winning educator Welby Ings) can anonymously hurl abuse online to anyone in the public eye. It can make the experience of standing for election unpleasant and scary.
We are not talking about genuine disagreement which tackles the argument made by a candidate, but the abuse which is personal and sometimes downright dangerous.
This sort of vitriolic discourse can also spill over into public places.
None of this behaviour promotes rational discussion of pertinent issues and it should be called out whenever it occurs.
It is also brave for candidates to be showing their willingness to enter local government at a time when its future role, under the existing government at least, looks unsure.
Recent edicts from central government about what it sees as local government’s role, including whether regional councils have a future, and the threat of a rates cap, make this a confusing time for candidates and voters alike.
While in some parts of the country there are insufficient candidates to necessitate elections, in Otago and Southland, apart from a few instances, this has not been the case.
There are contests for the mayoral chains in all centres in the South.
In Dunedin, voters will have to get to grips with 16 candidates for the mayoralty, compared with half that number standing for the Invercargill position.
One of the Invercargill mayoral hopefuls, Nelson-based Andrew Clark, brother of the outgoing mayor Nobby, will already have ruffled a few feathers, not least because he is also standing for mayor in the Tasman district.
His aspiration has not been embraced by his brother, and his comment he had been to Invercargill a few times and would move there if successful was not the most enthusiastic endorsement of all things Invercargill.
More attention is usually paid to mayoral elections in the traditional media, due to the logistics of in-depth coverage of hundreds of council and community board candidates.
However, there will be online information available and opportunities for people to meet candidates and hear what they have to say at public meetings.
Those who had not enrolled or updated their enrolment details by noon last Friday have until Friday, October 10, the day before the election, to do so (unlike the situation which will apply to the next general election if the proposed changes to the law are enacted).
Those late enrolments will not receive their voting forms in the mail, however.
Other voters can expect to receive their voting papers between September 9 and 22.
That should give voters plenty of time to decide what the big issues are for them and who will best promote them.
The other less prominent community election process under way nation-wide is for the triennial school board elections.
Most schools will be using the September 10 election date, to elect either their full complement of parent representatives, or half of them.
Nominations close this week, but at the end of last week there were concerns these were slower to come in than usual, with several thousand of the 10,000 places yet to attract nominees.
Sadly, among the reasons some parents or other members of the community may be reluctant to take on the role is the risk of being attacked on social media by people in the school community if something controversial happens within the school.
All of those who are brave enough to devote their time to these roles in schools and local councils deserve to be treated with good manners, even when we do not agree with them.
