The Letter

Here's the letter to the editor sent to the Sun that caused the stir and presumably led to my termination at the Mountain Ear:

Open letter to two Commissioners:

Dear Marge and Dave,

I left today’s meeting disgusted that elected officials of a certain age could have lived so long without understanding that anyone who chooses to work for the public needs to have oversight by their employers.

You work for us. You are paid by us. The only way we will know if you are doing your job is if we attend the meetings or listen to what others who have been to the meetings have to say.

You both look at the media as the enemy who get you in trouble. How you know this when you supposedly “don’t read the papers” is another stretch for any observer to swallow.

Today when I announced that my paper has asked me to back off complaining about the nincompoopery (my word) that goes on at your meetings, you both said “good” in loud and approving tones. Then Dave asked what paper I worked for? Duh! You don’t read it but you automatically assume that everything I write is bad.

If Nate and I didn’t write what we did about the public’s right to know, you’d still be having your meetings in private as often as you can. Ignorant of the law, or just plain un-lawful, you feel it is best that the public not know how their business is being conducted.

But one could conjecture that you are afraid that if the public does know how you do business they won’t approve. What else can we think? That’s why we have to have an RSA that assures the public’s right to know.

Marge said that she “never reads that paper. I hate it.” Five or ten minutes later she borrowed my copy and found the exact paragraph that she hated and read it allowed in the meeting to make her point about some Nate article. She repeatedly cautioned, “Not that I give much credence to what they say.” Doh!

Last week, Dave pointedly asked Dennis Robinson, DOC (runs the jail) if he shouldn’t use more than 15 minutes to interview prospective employees. Dennis explained, to my satisfaction, the other paper’s satisfaction and to any one else there why he thought “15 minutes is enough”. This week, without consultation (that would be illegal) Dave pressed him again. The DOC gave more detailed reasons, including recalling that Dave had sat in on one of the “15 minute interviews” of this type in the past.

I would have thought that was the end of it. But no. Now Commissioner Olkkola, who did not volunteer, has been assigned to monitor the next set of interviews. Sounds like you don’t trust the Director who has been doing this kind of work for 36 years. What is it in your interviewing background that makes you think you know more than he does?

I bet most people would rather you spend your time worrying about the credit card fiasco, the needless $800 in finance charges because of lax attention to detail, the total lack of follow through on the purchase order system in which only two of the 100 examined had a (required) signature, and of course, travelgate. It’s important to note that the public wouldn’t even know about this stuff if the Commission could still go into non-public at the drop of a hat.

Peter Case
Tamworth on Swift

PS: I would have sent this to the Commissioners instead of the Sun, but when I asked Dave for his email, he responded: “I don’t want any of your junk.”