With the General Election nearing and political forums for local candidates coming up, now is a good time to renew calls for candidates and their supporters to keep the campaigning for these important local races civil.

“Too late,” some may say judging from several recent letters to the editor concerning the City Council races. (The two School Board candidates are running unopposed.)

One of the main issues for the City Council races is last year’s amendment to the 1976 Memorandum of Agreement, the document which governs how Interstate 90 operates between Seattle and Bellevue. The candidates disagree on what they think best protects Islanders’ single-occupant access to the carpool lanes. The issue has strong and vocal supporters on both sides.

Candidates and their supporters need to re remember that we will still live together in the same community when the Nov. 8 election is over, and the members of the City Council, whoever they turn out to be, will need to work together. We will all run into one another at the same grocery stores, walk in the same parks, use the same post office and meet at school events. We are neighbors. Let’s focus the discussions on the issues and avoid name-calling, hearsay disguised as fact, and anger expressed thoughtlessly in print.

Speaking of discussion, the Friends of Luther Burbank Park is sponsoring a forum tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. at the library. Another forum, sponsored by the Reporter and League of Women Voters, is at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11, at the middle school.

Decisions about transportation and open space will indeed have long lasting effects. Yet how we treat each other, how we approach these decisions and how we work together, may be the real legacy we should focus upon.