The rainbow that appeared over Clanton Friday might have been a sign that our election season is finally over. The last event of this election cycle might have been when Circuit Judge John Bush ruled Friday morning that Bill Trimble couldn’t serve as the Ward 4 representative on the Clanton City Council, and the council must pick a replacement.

It has been a long and grueling year – a year in which we have seen elections from our municipalities to the President. There has been controversy including the close races with the Alabama Supreme Court and the Public Service Commission President. Two races in Jemison were decided by two votes each.

It seemed like the people in the county wanted change, but even with that change, many things remained the same. We have new mayors in two of our four cities, and right now, there are three vacancies for council members. Although we have two new commissioners, the five who are currently on the commission and ran for election all won.

There were some amendments that passed, and some failed. It’s a shame that the fire tax redistribution failed, and it’s equally as much shame for that Statewide Amendment One passed, which is allowing the Legislature to raid the state gas and oil trust fund. The only talk about these two amendments was their wording. The fire tax redistribution amendment had wording that sounded like it was adding a tax. Statewide Amendment One had wording that sounded like it was creating an education trust fund, but the state already had that. The wording is important when you are trying to get an amendment passed.

The election season is over. We have new laws and new leaders. Now, we must get behind our leaders and support them, but we must also hold them accountable for what they do.