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Letters to the Editor

On Citizenship

A citizen has various civic responsibilities, including voting, staying informed, and participating in community life. If we were living up to those responsibilities, we likely would not be faced with the current level of societal decline. We air our grievances and complain on social media, yet very few are willing to consider that maybe they, the individual, are part of the problem. Strive to be the solution. Voting is a vehicle for societal change. We’re lucky to see a twenty percent turnout rate in primaries, and not much better in general elections. We have no right to complain ...

Impeach Donald J. Trump

Donald J Trump, possibly facing another bankruptcy, travels to Russia (1987) to seek business with the Russians which brings the attention of active KGB and Vladimir Putin. He then returns to America, financially solvent. Recognizing his ability to play one-side-against-the-other, using the issues of Abortion, Religion, and a Two-Party System along with his new found wealth, he seeds the United States of America's Supreme Court with doubt in a majority of Justices of a single religious alliance and goes on to win the 2016 Presidential election. In the difficult first term, Donald J ...

Forget Jack’s bayou bias; focus on his character

Almost all my friends say they want Jack Bergman voted out of Congress because he is a carpetbagger who refuses to appear at town halls. Not me. Bobby Kennedy and Hillary Clinton were carpetbaggers in New York. Most Republicans avoid town halls if a Democrat can be found within 50 miles. More important, neither issue has dented Bergman’s landslide hold on voters in Michigan’s First District. I have a better, more compelling reason for sending Jack home from Washington, wherever that might take him. Jack Bergman has refused for six years to denounce the Big Lie, Donald Trump’s ...

A dangerous precedent

I'm a member of this community who cares deeply about the health of our public institutions, the tone of our civic life, & the kind of example set for people watching all this unfold. What concerns me about this recall effort being inflicted on members of this board & on the people of this community is not merely the politics of it. It's the precedent it sets. The petitions themselves list some votes. Not illegal actions or policy violations or corruption. Simply votes. Votes about a rain garden project, legal counsel, & a paving contract. Reasonable people can disagree ...

Recall effort moves forward

On March 2nd school board members Eric Lawson, Sarah Costain and Monica Dziesinski attended a hearing for a determination of the factuality and clarity of the proposed language on the petitions for recalling these three from their school board positions. Due to space limitation, the petition lists only three of the many reasons these board members are facing a recall. The 3-member panel reviewing the language were Alpena County Clerk Keri Bertrand, Probate Court Judge Alan Curtis and Alpena County Treasurer Cindy Cebula. It was interesting to note that not one person at the hearing ...

HOPE

Hope. This simple four-letter word has dominated my thought patterns in recent weeks. Often finding myself one of the oldest in any room these days, I believe hope is a desire of mine born from maturity and life’s experiences. I must admit, however, there also is a lot of the unknown ...