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Dear Editor:
Politics have always been shrouded in tales of power, ambition, intrigue and deceit; and politicians have a vested interest in the chaos they create to satisfy personal ego or clandestine agendas. In this small corner of “almost heaven”, recent events suggest these practices are as well-entrenched in our local affairs as much as they are on the national stage.
Much has been written lately concerning the Hancock County Animal Shelter. Whether it was necessary to revise an outdated contract that purports to accelerate the use of euthanasia; the lack of submitting a bid for the new contract; or failure to receive an extension that facilitated the perceived “hostile” takeover of the shelter are all vulgar expressions of betrayal, ineptitude, and deceit from the Hancock County Commissioners AND the Hancock County Animal Shelter Foundation.
Plagued with incompetent leadership and business decisions, we have grown accustomed to distrusting one another and our elected representatives, often because it is our only defense against the political machine. But no failure in America is more abhorrent in the eyes of its citizens than the kind of betrayal the Commissioners and the Foundation exploited by using the innocence of animals as political pawns to deal money, power or influence.
We are angry about offering overwhelming support for the Animal Shelter Levy only to learn upon its passage of the incompetent, dysfunction of government and business to heed the expressed interests of the people. We are angry about a public relations disaster that embarrasses us and validates perceptions of conflicts of interests and self-dealing in our county. We are angry about the negligence and concealment of strategic policy, and the betrayal of optimism and opportunity such potential could enable.
I do not speak alone to say the citizens of Hancock County will be hard-pressed to pass the next levy request. Not because such need might be perceived of little importance, but because fiscal realism is a critical foundation by which government can win the trust or lose the support of the public.
Fortunately, there is a growing power of public opinion in Hancock County, and the incident of the animal shelter has helped to align the public around shared political, social or economic values. By our collective action we can follow the advice of Martin Van Buren and change the thinking and behavior of existing leadership “which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.”
Marcus Trelaine
Newell, W.Va