MORE NATIONAL ATTENTION

Monday, April 3, 2006 8:34 AM CDT

Watertown continues to get national attention over Tuesday's referendum question on bringing home the troops from Iraq.

The latest was an invasion Thursday by a crew from ABC's “World News Tonight” which is preparing a segment for Sunday's show about the fervor over the question. They flew from Washington, D.C., with the production crew coming from Chicago early Thursday morning and before 9 a.m. they were in Watertown.

The first stop for the crew was a visit to our offices on the second floor of the Daily Times building. After about an hour of setup time, the crew spent about 15 minutes interviewing us and our perceptions of the referendum question.

They were looking for indications that the dissent over the war is growing and that the two sides were becoming acrimonious over the question. We really didn't see it that way. Watertown is a community where everyone knows everyone else and it's OK to disagree on some issues. In a small town like this, if you have only friends who agree with you all the time, you wouldn't have any friends at all. There are strong opinions to be sure, and there are few who are “in the middle” on this issue, but we don't' think it's at the point that family members aren't talking with each other or that friends are dissolving their relationships.

The crew was fascinated by our small town atmosphere and seemed to be enjoying the visit to the middle of America. From our office they moved to the law office of Ron Ziwisky, a vocal supporter of the referendum question who also has a lot of war-related items pasted on his front windows, including a death count of Americans killed in the war.

ADVERTISEMENT

They also had appointments with some other folks who were on one side of the issue or another and had planned to stop at the meeting Thursday evening which was sponsored by the peace coalition. Among those interviewed were Lou Checkai of the local American Legion Post and Mayor John David. There were some others as well.

In addition, they planned to film some local areas of interest such as the municipal building, Rock River Walkway, Riverside Park and a few others.

When all is said and done, the segment is expected to air on ABC's “World News Tonight” on Sunday which will be presented on WISN-Milwaukee and WKOW-Madison. The show starts at 5 p.m. and unless there is some huge breaking news story, readers will probably see some familiar faces on the tube that night. Just where the segment will be aired in that time slot is anyone's guess.

Our interview wasn't all that bad. It's never a comforting feeling having some folks you don't know recording every word rolling off your lips, and while it was a normal conversation, only one of us was being recorded and filmed. The reporter was just asking the questions and remained off camera as far as we could tell.

It's interesting that this crew spent the entire day here in Watertown and when all the editing is completed the segment to be aired will be relatively short. Tom Guisto, the segment's producer, said they will have several hours of tape to review and the finished product will be two to three minutes tops.

Before the crew was ready for some filming, there was the usual small talk but most of it was about sports and how we were fortunate to have the Packers, Bucks, Brewers and Badgers all within a relatively short distance. They were also fascinated by our proximity to Chicago.

The national focus on Watertown over this issue started a couple of weeks ago when the Washington Post wrote a detailed story about the referendum efforts in Watertown, including discussions on the floor of the common council about whether or not the petition should be placed on the ballot, the subsequent lawsuit and the ultimate decision that the question must be put on the ballot.

Once it's in the Washington Post, other national media pick up on it rather quickly. And that's so often the case. It's not a national issue until some national publication says it is. And, quite frankly, in the broad scheme of things this probably is a national issue.

The national media, whether it's the Washington Post or ABC News, has the luxury of coming in and doing a single piece which is an overview of the issue. Meanwhile, the local folks are covering these big events from a much more detailed perspective. Day by day and week by week it gets coverage, whether it's on the floor of the council, news articles or the dozens upon dozens of letters to the editor.

It's one of the more focused debates in Watertown in recent years and that's not all bad.

Now, it will be up to the voters to decide on the question, and the overall turnout will also tell us how important the referendum question is to us as a community. We hope the turnout is much larger than normal for a typical spring election. The bigger the turnout the better the gauge of public opinion on this issue.

SPEAKING OF TURNOUTS

We visited briefly with Mike Hoppenrath, city clerk, Thursday afternoon and he said a typical nonmayoral election would have a voter turnout of about 30 percent. Because of the referendum question, he's raising his estimate to 40 percent or maybe a little higher.

He also said the number of absentee ballots is a little higher than normal for a spring election but the difference is not significant.

While Mike's estimates are better than historical numbers, they are less than what it ought to be.

After all, there are races for alderman, Jefferson and Dodge County boards of supervisors and the Watertown school board. Some positions are unopposed but others are not.

How hard would it be to cast a ballot?

Maybe, just maybe, more people will decide to cast their vote on election day. We can only hope!

TLS