As we approach the June 13 election in Camden I’d like to offer a few opinions about this election season and the election itself.

First I’d like to say that there are some wonderful choices available in two local offices we’ll be voting on.

This year we have five candidates running for the two Select Board seats available and three candidates running for the two School Board seats.

That’s wonderful.

Even though I’m one of the candidates for Select Board I’m thrilled that after a number of years where we had almost no one running — this year we have excellent choices and well qualified candidates.

No matter how the election works out – I’ll know that both the School and Select Boards will be in good hands.

The voting public has some choices to make – the candidates, especially for Select Board – have differing opinions on very important town decisions and I hope before voting everyone reads all the information that is available for all the candidates and makes their selections based on those facts and then what’s important to themselves.

Knowledgeable voters are the bedrock of our system.

What is disappointing to me is the anger that I’ve witnessed focused on both candidates and choices we’ll be making this year.

I’ve always been proud of the fact that Camden has a thoughtful and educated electorate and a thoughtful and educated candidate pool.

We have some serious choices to make this year and I’m glad that we have a Select Board form of government instead of a City Council. Because of this – the people get to make the decisions and I believe that’s the way it should be.

But the process should be dignified, educated and considerate. I’m disappointed that anger has slipped into the process and I hope that we will return to civility sooner than later.

Good luck to all the candidates – remember that once elected you work for all the citizens of Camden!

Marc Ratner lives in Camden and is running for a seat on the Select Board.