We are deafened, if such can be fairly stated,

by the shrugging of shoulders.

Asked their preference as to how the island should be redistricted for selection of future city council members, the electorate has responded with a resounding and nearly unanimous vote: indifference.

What else can be drawn from the overwhelming absence of comment on an issue of no small significance?

As has been reported previously, city officials must redraw the boundaries of island voting wards, in response to relative population shifts revealed by the recent federal census. While several configurations have been touted, the issue has essentially boiled down to two choices: Keep three wards, with two council members from each and make the seventh position at-large; or go to four wards, each with a single representative, and three seats at-large. Both offer merits and drawbacks – would a single at-large position become, as some have suggested, a “super-seat,” a stepping stone to the mayor’s office? – that seem to us worthy of some robust discussion.

We recall a day not long ago when this issue would have been huge. Public forums would have been convened. The League of Women Voters would have mobilized for an independent study. The now-defunct Bainbridge Municipal League, studied contrarians in an often homogeneous political climate, would have challenged prevailing notions.

How quaint those days now seem!

Indeed, last week’s public hearing on redistricting drew exactly two comments, neither really brimming with rhetoric or passion. One person preferred three wards, the other four. Shoulders around the gallery simply shrugged.

Perhaps it heralds a political maturity on the part of islanders finally settling in after a decade of cityhood. The big battles have been fought; the electorate, the thinking goes, will be generally well-served regardless of how wards are drawn.

Consider too the influx of new residents, which has diluted somewhat the sensibilities (and voices) of the old guard, those who haven’t moved on. Having no grounding in the historical context of Bainbridge issues, today’s islanders have little reason to fear or resent change; they are change.

Perhaps that’s why the only comments on redistricting came from longtime islanders, veterans of an earlier and more dynamic political era.

Or maybe no one cares.

We have long posited an emerging political dynamic that can be generally described as “My Street versus the Island.” The scenario played itself most recently on Ericksen Avenue, a seemingly endless imbroglio pitting the interests of neighbors against the needs of those who use the street as a throughway to and from downtown. We heard it again last week as islanders commented on the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan; some cited community goals, others, the obstacles that make them impractical where they live.

Our proverbial “all politics,” it seems, has been narrowed much more finely than “local” – if the issues don’t affect my street, they no longer exist.

That’s too bad. Island-wide issues may lack resonance, but they certainly don’t lack relevance.