EDITORIAL:Make sure to go out and vote

The time for talking, yelling and debating is just about over. So, too, is the time for piles of political mailers that are made almost entirely of overly simplified messages that do little to help voters. (That goes at least double for mailers on the various statewide propositions that are crowding this year’s ballot.)

Tuesday, Nov. 7, is Election Day. After all the money, all the campaigning and all the strategizing, the decision is in the hands of the voters — at least those who have not already sent in their absentee ballots.

The simplest message to send today is this: Vote. Whether via absentee ballot or in person on Tuesday, it is our privilege and our duty as Americans to say which direction we think our community, our state and our country should head. Vote.

There certainly are plenty of reasons for residents of Newport-Mesa to go to the polls. In Costa Mesa, the City Council election widely is seen as one that could tip the city in dramatically different directions: either toward the vision of Mayor Allan Mansoor and Wendy Leece or that of planning commissioner Bruce Garlich and Mike Scheafer. The city’s immigration enforcement plan has been a centerpiece of the campaign, but other issues on which the candidates have disagreed include handling of the city’s police and fire departments and development on the Westside.

In Newport Beach, there is a full ballot that includes races for six of the seven council seats and three measures, two of them the competing measures V, the General Plan update, and X, the Greenlight II initiative. Approval of those two measures will dramatically shape Newport Beach’s future development, how the city handles traffic and where homes and businesses might be built. The council races offer voters the chance to give their backing to three appointed council members and bring in a new member in the district that includes the Balboa Peninsula. There are divergent choices in all but one race, where Mayor Don Webb is running unopposed.

And for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board of Trustees, there is the question of experience versus new blood. Longtime members are running once again, and in one race in Costa Mesa there will be a new face on the board.

Any and all of these races are worth getting to the polls.

Voters, we hope, have had time to digest the mailers and attend debates, and now feel educated enough to vote for the candidates who best mirror their vision of their city’s future. If not, there still are several days to cram for the Tuesday vote.

In the end, it does not take too much effort or too much time. Get out and vote. We all are lucky that we get the chance to do so.