This was an election with very clear choices, from the antithetical belief systems of many of the candidates, to the opposing sides of issues such as funding our state transportation systems and setting aside open space. Locally, electors in East Greenwich had to decide whether to build a school for its youth and a community center for its aged. So, Wednesday morning the Sun either caught you smiling in hopeful vindication or cowering in fear for a future that looks very different from our past.

Getting to those emotions was the easy part. This was an election year rife with expressions of impassioned belief systems.

But that part of the process is over. The road ahead of us as a country, a state and a town hasn’t changed. The same steep hills, sinkholes and deep grass still await our approaches  as we try to fund new projects while dealing with the confines of an uncertain, struggling economy. Locally, we will have pay $52 million for a new middle school and other improvements to the district’s facilities, and we will have to pay another $3 million for an addition to the Swift Gym that will allow the town’s seniors to have a place to get a hot meal once a day, take some classes, get some basic health care such as flu shots and use as a meeting place to escape the confines of their homes.

What this will cost the ‘average’ East Greenwich resident in total, given an  assessed taxable property of $750,000 as an example, is about an additional $1,000 in property taxes per year. It’s a difficult time to ask people to spend more money they don’t have to fund buildings and roads, but it has to be done. Repairs and routine maintenance of pre-existing buildings, bridges and roads has been frequently ignored in the past, and some of those particular chickens, fattened by waste in the flush times, have come home to roost.

And so with these approaching chickens on the henhouse doorstep, we need to make sure these expenditures aren’t viewed as golden eggs. To make the same mistakes as in the past – cutting corners on things such as window seals, poorly-ventilated crawlspaces that become ripe with mold and flooring that won’t stay glued down – would be a disservice to the voters who have endorsed the futures of their children and their senior citizens. It’s wonderful to be hopeful, but just as important to be prudent in construction choices anddiligentin instituting their upkeep so we aren’t asked to shell out more in 10 years time.