EDITOR:

I attended the Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, February 21, and was both appalled and embarrassed at what I witnessed. All citizens of Delta County need to see for themselves the inept and rude behavior exhibited by some of our elected officials.

The ineptness is largely the inability to run a meeting using proper protocols and procedures. Examples from Tuesday’s meeting include improperly allowing the chair to make a motion, voting on an issue before having discussion, and calling for back-to-back votes without individual motions. In addition, it appears that the commission has been operating for some time without including a conflict of interest declaration on the agenda — a point brought out by members of the audience.

Watching and hearing multiple citizens address commission actions and asking questions for which they received no answers added to the farcical nature of the proceedings. No one explained the reason for the potentially illegal action taken to break the contract with the Delta Conservation District or for the firing of administrator, Emily DeSalvo. Nor, when confronted with their own personal ethical and character issues, did said commissioners bother to address those issues. Governance by ignoring concerns or covering up the reasons behind their decision-making is certainly not what the democratic process is all about.

The discussion regarding the new interim administrator had clearly taken place outside the bounds of the public meeting. Giving the interim administrator a new contract paying her as much as the outgoing administrator in spite of her inexperience in a supervisory role while paying the administrative assistant $350 a week to help “train” that new administrator seems both fiscally irresponsible and illogical. That, coupled with the severance pay they are obligated to provide to DeSalvo and the expense involved in the search for a new administrator will cost the county thousands of dollars unnecessarily. All of this is being done in the name of getting rid of an employee who was highly regarded by nearly everyone with whom she worked with the exception of three vindictive commissioners.

For what it’s worth, it was refreshing to see two of the commissioners stick to their guns in the 3-2 votes that took place. It should also be noted that Commissioner Viau spent a great deal of time trying to clarify issues and get explanations for many of the actions that were taken. His efforts, in fact, met with applause from the audience — evidence that there is lots of dissatisfaction with the way that things are currently operating.

I could detail so many more things that took place but instead will simply ask that members of Delta County take the time to educate themselves about what is happening with our elected officials and make your voices heard as calls are made for Moyle, Barron, and Petersen to resign.

Shirley Gollach

Escanaba