Letters To The Editor
Dear Editor:
At the county commissioners’ meeting on June 3, I was told that the county commissioners and I have an ideological difference. WOW! They don’t see a problem with giving themselves and the rest of the county employees $1,000 each of CARES money while the rest of the county taxpayers dealing with the exact same condition don’t get a thing.
The county road department commented that his employees were glad to get the money. Once again my point, almost all taxpayers would be very happy to get $1,000. The commissioners took very little time in behind the scenes meetings deciding to take money for themselves. How can they justify giving to some and not to all? I believe this is discrimination at its purist form, but the commissioners don’t. A difference in ideology, you bet.
We were told there isn’t enough money to give all taxpayers $1,000, but as we see the commissioners were quick to take that much money for themselves. They may even have used it to pay their county taxes. They must have little conscience or ethics to make such a decision. This is unethical and an abuse of public trust. As elected officials, we expect the commissioners would consider the taxpayers that elected them, but this sure isn’t the case.
It is obvious that there is no compassion by the commissioners for the county taxpayers that were sick, hospitalized and some even died. The commissioners made sure they go their CARES money first. It is a very sad time in county management when taxpayer money that was to be used for those most directly and severely impacted by the effects of Corona virus was only given to a privileged few.
They referred to the oil severance stipend and that was similar. Wrong. The oil severance money should have gone to pay down the jail debt. The CARES money should benefit all county taxpayers. If there isn’t enough money to give all taxpayers $1,000, then they shouldn’t give it to themselves.
We must be grateful that at the time of the secret discussion, they settled on $1,000 per employee, not $5,000. However, there are still some unrestricted CARES funds available so there is always a possibility they may give themselves more taxpayer money. Stay tuned. Bill Juve Wolf Point
