It's that time of the year again. Leaflets in doorways, placards on lightpoles. The colors of the fall foliage are hard pressed to compete with the deep reds, bold blues and glittering whites of the election season.

Turnout for this election, however, threatens to be the lowest in the city's history. In the Back Bay, we only have city elections. In one of those races (mine, I'm delighted to say), the incumbent is unchallenged. The other race is for the four at-large council seats.

The City Council may change significantly this year. One of the incumbent at-large councilors, John Nucci, is not running for re-election, meaning that there will be at least one new member of the council. (In addition, District 9 Councilor Brian McLaughlin, who represented Allston and Brighton, is retiring from public life. Four candidates are running for that seat.) The other three incumbents are well known to Back Bay residents: Peggy Davis-Mullen, Richard Iannella, and Albert "Dapper" O'Neil. The field of challengers is large: 15 people are running, including the city's former Police Commissioner, Francis "Mickey" Roache, former State Representative Paul Gannon and a number of other familiar names such as Michael Flaherty, Frank Jones, and Tony Crayton, a former Roxbury district councilor unseated during the last election by Gareth Saunders.

The prediction of those following the race is that all three incumbents will be re-elected, with Mickey Roache being the new addition. Michael Flaherty, Paul Gannon and Steve Murphy of Hyde Park are of expected to finish strongly as well.

Despite the politicking of the 15 candidates, however, this is expected to be one of the lowest turnouts ever for a city election, especially in the Back Bay. Part of the reason is that there are no burning issues dividing the candidates. In addition, there is no local race that's interesting (something for which I am grateful). Also, none of the candidates hails from the traditionally more progressive neighborhoods of the city, such as Back Bay, and the people who live in those neighborhoods are not familiar with them or what they stand for.

So should we all just stay home? Absolutely not. One truth that I have become increasingly convinced of as an elected official is that voting matters. It matters because politicians care who votes and they pay attention to who votes. Residents in South Boston and West Roxbury vote in large numbers. Guess what? City politicians pay a lot of attention to those neighborhoods. It may seem unfair, but it's true.

Beacon Hill and Back Bay have a reputation for low turnout. Guess what? A lot of politicians ignore them both. This a year, a number of the at-large candidates have written off the two neighborhoods entirely, preferring to spend their time in high turnout neighborhoods like West Roxbury.

As residents and voters we have the ability to change that. First of all, we can vote. Second, we can target our votes towards those who have paid attention to our neighborhoods. My friend Richard Iannella, for example, is one incumbent councilor who has made an effort to pay attention to Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. A handful of the at-large challengers are also willing to spend time in thearea. We should reward them.