EDITOR:

My concerns expressed today have to do with our county board of commissioners. Watching the board meetings on YouTube is a very stressful event for me. I cannot get to the meetings due to the time they hold them. I am not retired and work until 5:30 p.m. I wonder the reason they find it beneficial to hold the meetings at 5:00/5:15 p.m. when people are just leaving work.

I am a licensed mental health therapist and watching a meeting creates emotional confusion, chaos and invalidation of personhood in the viewer. The chairman of the board’s most recent post about prayer exemplifies my previous statements. He not only becomes the final arbiter of who gets to read a prayer but how it gets approved. In his post he mentioned how our county clerk is part of this process. If so, I hope the clerk understands the dilemma this has placed her in professionally and ethically.

Because our commissioners appear to use the Constitution and Bill of Rights as their justification for “why” they do things and how they come to their egocentric and autocratic decisions, I will do the same with using a writing from a Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson.

My source for this letter comes from the The Library of America, Jefferson Writings, page 510. I encourage anyone to use The Library of America has a good resource for understanding our Founding Documents and not the word of ill-informed people of power who selectively use phrases to gain more power and manipulate the reader.

Thomas Jefferson responded to a letter written by “Nehemiah Dodge and Others” from the Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut. This organization expressed a deep concern that Jefferson having been elected President would work to eliminate their up-and-coming religious group.

In his response, President Jefferson wrote this issue “lies solely between man and his God…” He further reminded them our Country assures no establishment of an official religion, thus “building a wall of separation between church and state.” I find these statements to be understandable. I am not sure how the Commissioners are confused. Is there a violation of the Constitution with this most recent mandate declared by our chair?

We, as voters, have an obligation to ourselves, our children and grandchildren and future generations to assure that we vote in the best interest of our future and not just our present because without a present we have no future. This would be a definition of a critical thinker.

Support the upcoming recall of the “band of three”: Moyle, Petersen and Barron. Support Malnar and Viau who are working in our interests.

Monica L Peach

Escanaba