Dear Editor,

As a resident of a local municipality, have you wondered why your governmental officials make the decisions they do? If you have and you think you would like to be more involved in that process you can easily do that. RUN FOR A LOCAL OFFICE. In the Village of Belleville it simply requires filling out Nomination Papers and getting 20 voter signatures during the month of December. Two nice things about running for a village office are it’s a non-partisan position and you can do as little campaigning as you like. Usually most candidates write an article for the local paper explaining why they are running for office.

As someone who has participated in several capacities in the Village of Belleville’s government, I highly recommend becoming involved. Not only will you get the satisfaction of being directly engaged in the future of the Village but you will gain a much better understanding of what influences the decisions.

If you do decide this is something you would like to pursue, do it with the understanding that it does involve a certain amount of your time, usually in the evening. Each month there are typically two Village Board meetings and two to three committee meetings. You do receive a stipend for each meeting you attend.

I urge you to give the voters in Belleville a choice of candidates for the next election in April.

Terry Kringle,

Belleville