For the third week in a row I have received phone calls asking if I have read the Star. And for the third week in a row, I have had to honestly report that I had not. But last night it was delivered. I stopped reading the Star when the reporting did not match up to the events.
Example: council meetings. I have reserved my thoughts thus far, because our council is trying really hard to follow the law and do what’s right. So are our concerned citizens. Toe stepping and fighting are not what built our community, so I have used my time more responsibly and sit through as many meetings as I can to be a part of the process, not opposed but a part of. That is huge. To be a part of encompasses all viewpoints including those that aren’t yours. To be a part of means you ask questions and become informed.
I stopped reading the Star because the Star has taken the stance that to ask questions and be informed means you (or whoever) asks or inquires is being disrespectful. While I fully appreciate and support the right to free speech I can’t condone blatant BS. Our questions, no matter how mundane, are asked for a reason.
Our mayor is not a lawyer either. Each one of us who reads the law will interpret it in our own way. The laws are available on line to download and interpret. Any person, even those that are not attorneys, can go online and read them for ourselves. If only attorneys and mayors were allowed to read them, they wouldn’t be made available to the public to begin with. Another thought, the council and the mayor are elected representatives, normal people. They are not attorneys, they are your neighbors. And I would hope that you, as a member of this community, would like them to be informed before making decisions on your behalf. In order to be informed, one must question. smile emoticon just sayin…
And most important, the residents of this community deserve respect. The mayor and his goon squad could practice what they preach. When town hall is filled with people who oppose an issue, and the mayor breaks a council tie in “the best interest of Stevensville,” it should represent the community that was there, not the community that didn’t bother to show up.
Dale reminded me in an editorial that if we want something, we have to be a part of it. So when we stand with our council, go to the meetings, and be a part of the process, so we can be chastised for doing what we as a community are supposed to be doing, it’s kinda a slap in the face.
And when it’s ok for the mayor to send shitty emails, but it’s not ok for the community to ask a question, via email… it kinda makes you go hmmmm. There is absolutely no reason for Clayton, Jim, Robin, Bob Michalson or any other member of our community to be getting heat for something they haven’t done. In order to do a job well, you do it fully. To do it fully, you ask questions. Part of town politics is that it encompasses the whole town, not just one or two aspects. The ultimate decisions made encompass all who live here. It is the council’s job to fully engage, to ask as many questions as possible, and have a complete grasp on everything they are making decisions on. For the mayor to spend 15 minutes lecturing our council and community on correspondence received during the last COW meeting was deplorable. To sit in his center chair and say, it is your right to ask questions, and in the same breath say, it is out of line to question the mayor, is childish and redundant. You don’t get both. smile emoticon and once again, the mayor might review his personal emails to Civic Club. They are intimidating and bullying. And frankly, so is Stevi’s current politics.
I might add, we wouldn’t need town government if all our interests were cookie cutter the same. Town government encompasses all. We aren’t always going to agree. But there is this neat thing called compromise, working together, and achieving common goals. It saddens me that we have elected persons who choose to tarnish others over lifting them up.
Kim French
Stevensville