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But Tuesday’s local elections might have been a very good day, indeed, for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½-area citizens who are tired of dysfunction and demagoguery — and eager for public service that lives up to the phrase.

In ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ city’s election, Mayor Tishaura Jones, city Comptroller Darlene Green and city School Board President Antionette “Toniâ€� Cousins all lost their offices in a sweeping rejection of incumbents who have angered the public in various ways lately.

Jones’ failure to deliver basic city services like snow removal, Green’s failure to show up to work and Cousins’ failed handling of a school district cronyism scandal all contributed to the voters’ harsh judgment.

It will now be up to Mayor-elect Cara Spencer, Comptroller-elect Donna Baringer and the newly reconstituted school board to regain that lost public trust. If there’s a message that should have come through loud and clear from the voters to this new city leadership, it’s: Just do the job.

That message was especially clear in the landslide margin by which Spencer unseated Jones — a gap of about 28 percentage points — after Jones defeated Spencer for the same office just four years ago. Electorates don’t flip so thoroughly based on isolated controversies but rather on a broader thirst for fundamental change.

Spencer will get plenty of advice in coming weeks, from us and many others, about how to deliver on the promise for change. Truly engaging with all voices, including her critics, would represent an improvement over her predecessor’s leadership style.

As for the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ school board outcome, the most obvious advice is immediately clear: Cousins’ dismal showing of less than 11% of the vote in a 12-candidate field should stand as a referendum on her circle-the-wagons lack of transparency during the deeply troubling fiscal and personnel controversies in the district. Newly elected board members Karen Collins-Adams, Allisa Foster and Brian H. Marston ignore that lesson at their political peril.

In two key suburban school districts, meanwhile, voters continued their promising trend of turning back right-wing activists who have prioritized book-banning and other culture-war tripe over educating kids. In the Wentzville and Francis Howell districts, voters chose moderate school board candidates who have promised to get back to the business of teaching.

The radicalization of those and other school boards began after the pandemic, as conservative populists were elected largely in response to controversies over mask and vaccination mandates.

However legitimate those debates may have been, the newly empowered ideologues wasted no time in expanding their mission to include (in Francis Howell) race-baiting attacks on Black history and literature and (in Wentzville) censorship of literary classics from school library shelves.

For the second consecutive election, voters in both districts said, “Enough.� In Wentzville, two right-wing activist candidates were defeated by mainstream moderates Julie Scott, an incumbent, and Jeremy Way. Similarly, at Francis Howell, incumbent conservative activist Randy Cook and running mate Ashley Sturm lost to moderate challengers Sarah Oelke and Amy Gryder.

“We have a chance now to make normal happen,� Oelke told the Post-Dispatch’s Monica Obradovic. Amen.

In ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County, voters soundly and properly rejected Proposition B, a misguided attempt by County Council members to give themselves authority to fire county officials who answer to County Executive Sam Page.

While Page’s leadership has been tumultuous at times, that doesn’t justify the breach of separation of powers that the Council was attempting. Kudos to the voters for rejecting it — and for decisions up and down the ballots Tuesday that indicate they are done with distractions and ready to get back to basics in civic representation.