Ryk Bullock for Moderator

Thursday, March 4, 2010

To the Editor:

In these times, there tends to be a desire for change just for the sake of change. I agree that change is good and new ideas even better. However, you only need to change the person when they are not changing and adapting to new approaches and ways of doing things. Ryk Bullock has been involved in the election process for 20-plus years and has been the Moderator for the last two years. During that time he has constantly made changes to the election process and the position of moderator. During this time we have seen the budget for the elections decrease 52 percent while having the amount of time it takes to vote in a presidential election( the highest volume) go from two-three hours to 61⁄2 minutes. He is continuing to improve his processes. While I was on the Town Council, I had discussion with Ryk about using technology to vote. At that time, it was estimated that the initial cost would be approximately $50,000 to implement something that was not even approved by the Secretary of State and is still not approved. The town elections cost on average $7,500 per year to run so if you saved $3,000 on an election, it would take 15 years to get your money back just to save another minute on the average time to vote.

Ryk has done a great job and has truly reached out to the community to listen to voters and improve the voting process. Because of his efforts, the Secretary of State has recognized the Town of Bedford, Ryk and the election team as a model polling place. Ryk is an independent, non-partial representative of the people. His only motivation is to provide the voters with the most non-partial opportunity to voice their concerns regardless of their point of view. He has brought a sense of community back to the town while continuing to improve the election process. So you need to ask yourself, what is broken? I say nothing. Please vote Bullock for town and school district moderator.

BILL VAN ANGLEN

Bedford

Former Chairman of the Town Council