Today, some folks opposed to what will be Proposal 5 stopped by and visited with the editorial board.

They were this year's first, but won't be the last.

The P.R. firm in charge of the campaign is the same one -- if I'm not mistaken -- that handled opposition to the Great Tobacco Cash Swindle from a few years ago. Back then, a guy name Dave Waymire ran the campaign. He's since left the firm and started his own. I didn't catch the name of the woman who coordinated today's visit, mostly because it usually takes about 10 minutes to clear the sweet, sweet music (and visions of flowers! ... and of pixies! ... and of little unicorn ponies!) from my head when I get to work.

But, the format of the visit was remarkably similar as in 2002. A few local folks -- County Commissioner Christine Alwood, Mt. Pleasant public safety director Bill Yeagley, Chamber president Jim Kostreva, and Paula Arndt of the Central Michigan Association of Realtors -- plus the hired P.R. gun.

Proposal 5 (here is the site for the folks in favor of it ... no endorsement intended) spends money from the general fund on education by short circuiting the legislative process. Mostly, from what I gathered, the real purpose is to pay teacher pensions (maybe, he says with shifty eyes, there will be a more thorough examination of the issue in a future edition). At least, that's what a read of the ballot language tells me.

The Morning Sun has agreed, as part of an ongoing project with The League of Women Voters, not to release ballot proposal endorsements until after publication of The League's Voters Guide near the end of October ... so we'll suspend until that time any comment that might appear editorial in nature. That includes the snarky ones that are kind of fun to make, since I've heard dark and sinister things about how the League handles people who break promises to it (kneecaps smashed, tires slashed, bricks thrown through windows, dead chickens hung above front doors ... the list goes on and on).