A co-worker recently posted a photo on Facebook depicting the Christmas displays at a local home improvement store. With it, he offered a simple one-word caption.

“Really?”

Yes, Christmas decor is a bit premature, but what isn’t premature is the arrival of autumn about 10 days ago. With it comes cooler nights, onset of fall foliage and, yes, election season.

In my business, this is the time of year when our workload ramps up.

Much like disbelief and frustration of Christmas lights in September, election season also comes with seemingly premature presidential debates for a primary election more than six months away.

In fact, as I write this on Wednesday evening, the Republican presidential debate is about to get started.

The good news is that most of us can ignore those national races for at least a little while longer. The primary election in Ohio isn’t until March 19, 2024.

Right now, however, we all need to turn our attention to the quickly approaching Nov. 7 General Election, when we will be casting ballots on local issues and candidates that arguably are even more important to us.

There will be issues for you to help determine the funding for local government along with your future property tax amounts.

Ohioans also will elect members of the boards that govern our children’s school districts. Those of us who live in townships will elect a trustee and fiscal officer. Others who live in villages and cities might elect council members and mayors.

It’s true some voters in a few polling places won’t have an opportunity to cast ballots on these races because some races are uncontested, and sadly, some races don’t have even enough candidates to fill all the seats that will be coming open.

Still, every polling place in the state will be open with an opportunity to let your voice be heard on two statewide issues. Ohio Issue 1 is the Right to Make Reproductive Decisions Including Abortion Initiative. And Issue 2 is Ohio’s recreational marijuana legalization ballot issue.

If you don’t have an opinion on either of these issues or both, then you REALLY must be apathetic.

But I digress.

All the local races and issues are a lot for local media that’s charged with covering it all — not to mention for voters who want to be educated on their choices. Many of the dozens and dozens of candidates already are answering invitations in some of the races to meet with our newspaper’s editorial board during our endorsement process.

We take this task seriously. We spend time with many candidates in some of the more hotly contested races, hearing what they have to say about why they should be elected. We ask hard questions about controversial issues surrounding their communities and about the priorities they list on written questionnaires. Also, we review previous news stories about the candidates or, if a candidate is an incumbent, about their past time in office.

While we simply cannot endorse in every race, we try our best to offer some insight on the candidates in many of the contested races. We’ll write stories about some of the contested races.

At the very least, we’ll be publishing lists and boxes of the contested local races, issues and liquor options as early voting and Election Day approach.

In some races, we’ll publish editorials offering our endorsement for various candidates, and undoubtedly, readers will be writing letters to the editor about why they like or dislike particular candidates. Additionally, many candidates likely will share their pledges and qualifications in paid advertisements on these pages. All this information is excellent when it comes to educating yourself before heading to the polls.

The fact is, if you want information about grass-roots elections like the one that’s fast approaching, this newspaper will be the best place to get it.

We’ll do our best to share all that we know. That’s because we care about fairness and accuracy when it comes to election coverage — and all our news coverage.

Linert is editor of the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator.

blinert@tribtoday.com