The polls will open at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3, and they will remain open until 8 p.m. Hopefully sometime within those 13 hours you'll be stopping by your polling place.

I'm always surprised that more people come out to vote for the President or U.S. Senators than they do for their local municipal officials. When we really think about who has the most impact on our day-to-day lives, the local officials win hands down. These are the people who can change your tax rate, add fees, pave your street and clean up the abandoned property next door, and it won't take them eight years to do it. They are so much more accessible to us; if you walk up to a local official on the street, you're not going to have to wade through the Secret Service to chat with him or her.

If you really want to have a say in your government, in your quality of life, you need to get out to the polls on Tuesday and vote for the people who will be on your borough council, board of supervisors, or school board next year.