Fairview borough, which has fewer than 200 residents, until recently had seven council members. That was a problem that needed to be fixed.

“We couldn’t get anyone to fill the positions. That’s why we had the hearing,” Council President Jeffrey Shumaker said recently.

That hearing before Butler County Judge Thomas Doerr quickly reduced the number of required council members in Fairview from seven to three. “It’s gotten really difficult every year. It’s gotten difficult to find anybody,” Shumaker said.

Fairview used to have two different husband-wife teams on their seven-member borough council. But one couple resigned for health issues and the other relocated. They couldn’t be replaced. That led to the petition and the hearing.

“Members of council aver that neither a seven- or five-member board is viable. More often than not there are vacant positions no one runs for. There is little interest in community members in the governance of their community. Having sufficient persons attend meetings to ensure a quorum is almost impossible,” the petition stated.

Reducing the number of seats around the meeting table was a smart decision by Fairview, but it didn’t address the larger problem mentioned in the petition: “There is little interest in community members in the governance of their community.”

That lack of interest goes well beyond Fairview borough. It’s not unusual for local government offices to be held by people who were elected without opposition. The lack of voter turnout on Election Day is as predictable as it is tragic. People who have strong opinions about national politicians and policy questions have little interest in what is happening much closer to home even as their drive on the roads, send their children to the schools and drink the tap water all delivered and maintained by local governments.

Our government was designed to be led by people who take an active role not just on Election Day but every day. Our representatives work not just in boroughs like Fairview but in county seats like Butler, state capitals like Harrisburg and Washington.

The lack of attention to local government doesn’t, of course, mean that those wheels just grind to a halt. If a citizen doesn’t attend a borough meeting, it still goes on. Decisions are still made. Things still happen.

But if the potholes you want fixed right away don’t get patched because the borough or township you live in has other plans for your tax dollars — and you don’t try to steer them in a different direction — who is to blame?

Fairview borough made the right call when it cut the size of its council down to a more achievable three members, but the problem of citizen participation in local government remains. Watching over all layers of government are doing is as American as apple pie — and critical to the health of our republic.