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Letters to the Editor

Grateful for the support from Alpena County

To the Constituents of District 8 and Alpena County, On Jan. 24, I had the great privilege to be appointed as the District 8 County Commissioner. Although I have held this position for the past 6 years, the appointment was a very special moment for my family and I. I want to take the time to say I’m grateful to everyone that provided a letter of support for me as I looked to be appointed. Those letters served as a reminder that you believed I have been doing the job that was expected of me. As I prepared for the interview, I met with constituents and was grateful to have ...

Glad residents drinking fluoride-free water

I am so happy for Alpena folks that do not have to drink water that is spiked with fluoride. More than 400 animal and human studies show fluoride is a neurotoxic substance, and many have found harm at, or precariously close to, the levels millions of American pregnant women and children receive. A 1 mg-per-day increase in the fluoride a mother gets from drinking water may lower the IQ of her child by 3.7 points. Infants fed baby formula made with fluoridated water have lower IQs than those fed formula made with unfluoridated water. An increase of 0.5 mg/L of fluoride corresponds with ...

A good demonstration of election integrity

At the Jan. 24 meeting, the Alpena County Board of Commissioners had an opportunity to demonstrate their support for “election integrity”. Unusual employment circumstances restricted sitting commissioner John Kozlowski from campaigning to retain his position. In addition, his employment required him to submit a letter of resignation. Rules have strange anomalies and even with the employment rules restricting his campaign they did allow him to be “appointed”. Mr. Kozlowski was unopposed in the November election and was elected to the office. In parallel with the employment ...

ACC women’s teams need a new nickname

We learn from scanning headlines in a recent edition of The Alpena News that the nickname for the women’s sports teams at the local community college is the Lady Lumberjacks. The Lady Lumberjacks, still in 2023. A woman has been the presidential nominee of one of the two major parties, another woman is Vice President of the United States. Locally, the federal government has forced a name change for The Bay Formerly Known As Sq —, and Michigan has a woman governor and a woman as U.S. Senator, and so on and so on, but the women’s basketball team at Alpena Community College is ...

Julie Riddle did her job quietly and with grace

Having just read what appears to be Julie Riddle’s last column for The Alpena News, I realized our area is losing a graceful and gentle soul. I never really got to know Julie except through her writing in the news. She did her job quietly and with grace. It was seen in her writing and how she did her job. I saw her often at meetings I attended or was part of, in courtrooms, and public events. She usually sat in the back, was never pushy like some expect from the media, and wrote beautifully. She obviously is a person of great faith. I wish I had made the effort to get to know ...

Transparency, correction needed for ACCOA

I have been attending township, city, county and recently Alcona County Commission on Aging meetings for over 10 years. Never in all this time have I experienced the degrading level of combatant behavior of a subgroup as I have with ACCOA in the last five months. This subgroup has always been around submitting their versions of Resolutions to local boards in order to subvert democracy and forward thinking. Thankfully, common sense and a call to duty for all citizens has prevailed until now, especially as witnessed with the overtake, yes I said it, of the ACCOA Board of Directors. I ...