To the editor:

At the first commissioners meeting of 2018, when the board appointments were to be addressed, the commissioners stated that there were not enough applicants for their appointments and that they were going to re-advertise the openings to try to attract more applicants.

This never happened.

At the commissioners meeting on Jan. 17, when the time came to make board appointments, they were asked if they were going to have applicants speak.

They said that this was not necessary because all of the applicants had already been interviewed, either in person or by phone.

This was not true.

One applicant who was in attendance at this meeting (who has been very active in the community) was never contacted or interviewed.

When confronted about this discrepancy, the commissioners said that they always appointed people who shared their vision and economic goals.

After the meeting, when asked how this was determined if all of the applicants had not been interviewed, they had no response.

Was this an example of corruption? Collusion? Incompetence? An example of the good ol’ boys network? Or just Wonderland?

You might find it interesting to listen to the audiotape of the Jan. 17 commissioners meeting to decide for yourself.

The commissioners represent the county, and citizens expect to have open, honest and transparent governmental representation from their elected officials.

The 2018 elections provide an opportunity to elect candidates that reflect the best values of the county.

To quote Lewis Carroll from “Alice in Wonderland”:

“They don’t seem to have any rules in particular, at least if there are, no one attends to them.”

Paul Navarro, Brown County

Send letters to [email protected] by noon Thursday before the date of intended publication (noon Wednesday on holiday weeks). Letters are the opinions of the writer. Letters must be signed by the author and include the writer’s town of residence and a contact number in case of questions. Only one letter every two weeks, per writer, to allow for diversity of voices in the opinions section. Please be considerate of sharing space with other letter-writers and keep your comments concise and to the point. Avoid name-calling, accusations of criminal activity and second- and third-hand statements of “fact.”