OPEN LETTER FROM LETTERS FROM THE VALLEY COUNTY ELECTORATE
To: St. Luke's Trauma Program, Valley Countywide EMS, Local Fire Districts, Valley County Sheriff's Office
Re: Questions about training exercise
I was alerted to a massive training exercise you are conducting Tuesday by a reader. He stumbled across it on the Star-News website while looking up something else. The online story did not appear in the print edition (I looked through it twice) or if it did, it was in a location too obscure to be effective public notice of such a publicly visible event.
Unless things have changed dramatically in the two years we've been gone from The Star-News, only a tiny fraction of the newspaper readership looks at the website. Most read the print edition either in hard copy or in digital pdf form. It was pure coincidence that I was alerted to it.
Is this training drama still going to unfold in the middle of downtown McCall with the public largely unaware that it isn't the real thing?
Was there any thought given to rescheduling it until effective notice could be given? What is your policy on effective notice of these kinds of events?
Even though this is an event orchestrated by St. Luke's McCall, did anybody in EMS management give thought to how staging this event so close to an election in which EMS funding is on the ballot would look to the public? I am getting emails from readers who suspect it is a publicity stunt to sell the levy. I know it isn't, but once that wildfire gets started, it's hard to tamp down.
I don't manage the newspaper anymore, but I presume the people who do will report on such a spectacular event. Here's a sincere and friendly word of advice to EMS staff: don't fan the publicity stunt flame. Avoid any reference to being "stretched" or "understaffed" in any interaction regarding this exercise until after the election.
There are some other aspects of this that I would like to be educated on:
• The exercise involves an accident involving a tour bus and a hazmat truck. I am guessing that the chances of such a tragedy happening near Legacy Park are about .000000001%. So what is the benefit of disrupting downtown for 2 1/2 hours? Such an accident would more likely happen on the bypass, which was built to serve the types of vehicles involved in the exercise. And to avoid messing up traffic on the bypass, couldn't this have been staged in a pasture somewhere on Mission Street? That seems to be more realistic in terms of distance from hospital/ambulance facilities that would mobilize in such an event.
• Why choose such an unlikely event when you could use public resources to make sure you are prepared for a much more realistic tragedy, like a school shooting?
• I know that we want our responders to be prepared for the worst, but since instinctive responses are the product of repetition, how is this training effective? If such a thing has such a remote chance of actually happening, will anybody remember what to do if it does?
I look forward to the answers to these questions. I think many of your constituents do too. The most effective first response partnership is between providers and an informed electorate.
When we owned The Star-News, Tom and I used our personal, not business, email addresses. Over the 40 years that we ran the newspaper, we corresponded with just about everybody in the county at one time or another. Email apps store email addresses in a database file, so it was a simple matter to turn those DBs into a spreadsheet. There was so much correspondence over so many years, we couldn't tell specifically how those email addresses got in the DB. It could have been a submission like an obit or a classified ad. Some could have come in as cc's to another email. For instance, we would be copied on a group mailing sent by a club or organization. So if you received correspondence from a group that was copied to us during our years at the paper, you likely landed in our DB.
We didn't pirate the Star-News subscription list because we didn't need to. The list we generated from our DB had far more contacts from a much broader demographic. We looked at the regulations governing "unsolicited" correspondence. All email correspondence between personal addresses is considered personal correspondence. Going back to the group analogy. If you get email from a group, the Benevolent Order of Town Deer Lovers for example, you didn't "sign up" to be on that mailing list. It is assumed that because you are a member of the group that you want to read the group's newsletter. When you receive an email from an old acquaintance, you didn't specifically grant permission to that person.
Personal correspondence is outside the spamming/unsolicited mail regulations because if such a policy were in place, it would be unenforceable. And it would do more harm than good. Perhaps hearing from that old acquaintance was painful. But in more cases, hearing from blasts from our pasts is a pleasure. Technology, such as spam filters, blocking and unsubscribe buttons empower you to control your email consumption with a convenient click.
There is also an exemption for political correspondence, which this Substack clearly is. Have you been swatting unsolicited texts, emails and robo calls like flies during this election season? Me too. That's because politicians talk a big game about protecting your privacy but insist on preserving their right to invade it. The exemption for political correspondence is another crack I decided to slip through. I had a hunch that a blog dedicated to historical perspective and the airing of plausible alternative points of view is needed in this community. That has turned out to be true. Since my first pre-Substack mailing went out in May on the M-D housing levy, an astoundingly small number have opted out.
I deeply respect your privacy. Before I started the Substack, I sent two successive emails announcing it with an opt-out button at the very top. Maybe you remember getting those. It didn't blink because I hate that. But it couldn't have been more obvious if it had crawled onto your lap and called you 'momma'. Some did opt out and we purged them from the list. Happily, Substack now manages all of that. The manual management was mind-numbingly tedious.
Curiously, the letter writer was not on our original list, so either he subscribed voluntarily or he had a post forwarded to him or he wrote his letter under a pseudonym. Our readers are smarter than the average population. We presume you know where the unsubscribe button is located and that it isn't too much trouble to blow us into email oblivion if you so choose. That so many of you haven't is such a compliment. Thanks for reading! —TSG
So... we are already yearly taxed Donnelly RFPD$245.57 and V.C. EMS district $76.82 and they want to tax us more? When their wonderful services are needed we are billed or our insurance company pays them it is not a free service. They are going to tax working and retired people out of existence and we will not be able to afford to live here anymore.
I have been reflecting on the invaluable insights you have shared, which have sparked engaging discussions. Many of us reached out, both prior to and following the launch of your platform, eager to participate in meaningful dialogue.
You rightly noted, “I do not think EMS has done an effective job of communicating with the public. They complain that we never attend their meetings or visit their firehouses. But it is not the public's responsibility to come to them; it should be the other way around. One of the reasons I started this Substack was to create a platform that fosters genuine conversation rather than talking past each other.”
However, it seems that our offers for open dialogue have not yet been embraced. Your platform holds remarkable potential to cultivate these essential conversations, and I sincerely value your perspective. With your extensive 40 years of experience, I believe we have overlooked a significant opportunity—one that enables us not only to share insights but also to collaborate in fostering a more nuanced understanding of the issues at hand.
While I respect your earlier assertion, “I made a significant point in my early posts that I would not strive for balance, if such a thing even exists,” I encourage you to consider that a one-sided critique may unintentionally hinder the growth and collaboration we all aspire to achieve.
I would also like to point out that many of the concerns we have discussed are already available online, in public forums, and discussed during those community meetings. For more detailed information, I invite you all to explore the links below, which provide comprehensive responses to these issues, including budgetary information.
Thank you, Tomi, for responding to my previous comments on your
Post of The Apocalypse Bingo Model and for your most recent battering ram post. I applaud your comment, "One of the reasons I started this Substack was to be a platform that will help us quit talking past each other and help us talk with each other." I look forward to your future posts
on other issues we face in Valley County.
Many of our commissioners, mayors, and council members ignore public comments and input on solutions to Valley County's issues, which is discouraging.
As I've mentioned before, the lack of proactive leadership on the EMS issue for over a decade has led us to our third levy vote. It's time we addressed the adverse impacts of unprecedented growth approvals and the interconnected issues of water, land, wildlife, and social welfare. We must transition from reactive decisions to proactive problem-solving to prevent crises.
Your points on communication failures remind me of why McCall's first library bond failed. I am on the library board of trustees and was outspoken about how the first bond process was communicated to the public. I was sad the bond failed because of my love for libraries, which have always been a magical, helpful place, and my support for librarians who have helped me my entire life. The failed bond hit me hard. I learned from that experience that our communication effort did not inform the public why we needed a new library. The lesson of a failed communication effort on the first bond became clear when Lola Elliot and I knocked on over 200 doors in McCall as individuals, not library board members, to explain why we needed a new library. I discovered how many people were amazed at how a library bond failed and appreciated the people whose doors we knocked on asked us questions we answered. The second bond passed by 78% of the voters, a record for a super majority bond vote.
I also will admit to my bias in voting yes to the EMS levy. Growing up, I was surrounded by firefighters, EMS, and Police officers because my dad was a firefighter, and I briefly served as a volunteer firefighter. When the firehouse siren wailed, my friends and I followed the fire trucks, and I watched my dad, and his fellow firefighters run into burning buildings. When my dad became a paramedic, I saw him come home stressed and sad from what he saw every time they lost someone. I admit my bias because many of our firefighters, EMS, and hospital staff are friends, and I have listened to their stories and learned why they need a yes on the EMS levy.
While I thought about and researched your Temporary tax solution, I have to agree with Chief Garret de Jong's comment: When salaries are tied to temporary funding and people working at the agency have to wait in angst every couple of years, they are less likely to keep working at that agency, and, in my experience watching other Fire/EMS agencies, it creates significant turnover." I would not want the threat of my job on the line every few years. It may be why so many businesses in Valley County face staff shortages, such as the insecurity of their staff's economic situation and temporary leases for housing. I also believe we need not place additional stress on those who risk their lives to serve us, protect us, and deal with what they see in emergency responses. I know EMS and first responders chose their profession, and I am grateful for the men and women who serve and protect us.
Tomi, while we may disagree on the EMS debate, I value your perspective and the discussion it has sparked. I hope the levy passes, but if it doesn't, I appreciate the solutions and thoughtful debate you've brought to the table, and I will not lose hope that our community will figure out an EMS solution for all of us.
Danielle, you wrote: "However, it seems that our offers for open dialogue have not yet been embraced."
My answer: Maybe we have a differing definition of "open dialogue." Have I not responded to your comments and the others posted by EMS staff with equally detailed comments of my own? And some of my readers have chimed in with thoughts both pro and con. That fits my definition of open dialogue. What is its shortcoming in your view?
You wrote: "I encourage you to consider that a one-sided critique may unintentionally hinder the growth and collaboration we all aspire to achieve."
My answer: One-sided critiques are what this country was built on. I consider your messaging to be extremely one-sided. I expect it to be. And I don't have the public bucks to buy color ads, send out mailers and pay people to create a website for me. Platforms like Substack are the great equalizer. They give the little guy some leverage against a far more well-heeled faction.
As long as you opened this door, I'm going to be a patriotic boor and walk through it. The rivalry of one-sided opinions is what this country's founders spent a good deal of time on. They recognized that the "marketplace of ideas" is critical to a free people. Ideally, a proposal is advanced. All citizens have the right to weigh in. Some arguments are going to find traction. Others won't. After a reasonable period, a decision is made at the ballot box. The side who made the best case prevails. One-sided opinions are sharpened and improved by colliding with other one-sided opinions. This is why I argue that we are the most educated electorate on the planet.
With the First Amendment as its vanguard, the success of this American Experiment (so far) is irrefutable. This process is obstreperous and tedious to be sure. And it is extremely public. The more public, the better. I don't think of myself as your collaborator. Our editorial page was a 40 year collection of one-sided critiques. What would have happened to our credibility if we had consistently been "collaborating" with local government? You accurately quoted my actual words (another of the advantages of print over verbal discussion), which described my goal as, "(fostering) genuine conversation rather than talking past each other." How can that be characterized as being in support of "collaboration"? And I daresay we likely differ on the definition of "growth."
The addition to your website of the page "inspired by residents" is a fabulous, if not a bit jargon-laced, effort. But I note that it was added on October 25th, too late to be of much influence. It should have been added a month ago, maybe even in May when your campaign started. A reference to it and updates to it (to generate interest) should have been a regular feature of your newspaper advertising. Providing references to information is clearly within the statutory permissions. In general, you conducted a rhetoric-based campaign and not one rooted in helping the electorate understand the economics of EMS. I did the opposite, by offering specific alternatives, one in particular.
I didn't get into your budgets and the justification for your proposal because it wasn't relevant to my position. For the purposes of this particular ballot question, I don't care how much money you are asking for or for what. I think a temporary tax is a better mechanism to fund EMS. Period. And I have given my readers detailed reasons why I think so. There is nothing on the EMS website that I can find that states your side on this point despite my now month-long promotion of it. A fire-chief did a nice job of framing it in a comment on this very Substack and we had a most educational exchange that I'm sure my readers appreciated. But they can't find it on your website.
Danielle, that very valuable conversation wouldn't have taken place without my "one-sided" voice.
Thank you David for yet another heartfelt and thoughtful comment. You left out an aspect to your library bond reference that is quite relevant to the EMS discussion. While I'm certain your door knocking was productive for both you and the people you talked with, I don't think it was what passed that proposal on the second try. I posit that it passed because you changed the proposal to eliminate all the ancillary spending baggage that made the first one an omnibus. In other words, having been sent back to the drawing board the first time, you listened to the electorate and came back with a smaller, much more specific ballot question. And you were rewarded for that.
My consistent complaint on the EMS proposal is that they will not take no for an answer. Over and over again. Unlike yours, their proposal has not changed. That is what inspired the reference to the Woodsman Café sign in this post. I realize some found that a bit coarse, but I don't know what else I can do to make this point. The electorate isn't hard of hearing. If the proposal was to buy ice cream to comfort a child who had just skinned her knees, some would vote no. There are voters who just can't be bothered with civics. They won't vote in this election either. Neither of these types are likely to be influenced by you or me or the EMS lobby. So the only recourse is to turn some 'no' votes into 'yes' votes.
But that ignores the other very real possibility that 'yes' votes can be turned into 'no' votes when the conversation becomes two-sided, which I don't think it was in the first two elections. When you poke a bear once, it might think you are a fly and swat at you. If you poke it twice, you're lucky if what you get is an impatient growl. But poke it again and you get what you deserve. If this levy passes, I will grudgingly give up a month of Netflix and move on. But if it fails, my bet is it will be by a bigger margin than the first two. Even the most patient bear has its breaking point.
I am really enjoying reading an independent, well researched and pragmatic point of view on issues like this one. Your example of their use of “critical” and “necessary” especially hit home. In my last LTE to the Star-News I used a similar example that the Department of Defense and Perpetua Resources use for antimony being “critical” and “crucial” to national security and the war in Ukraine. I guess this means we will have to wait until Perpetua starts actually producing antimony for the war to be won. Let’s see, five years from now?
Your comment is music Sam. You get it. A lot of folks are thinking this Substack was created to take down the EMS levy. They don't get it. I am here to share my knowledge of the local public process (which really isn't much different from any local process) to help people see the similarities in how government entities use their 'authority' to intimidate dissent. I am absolutely certain that when the initial "just asking questions" letter writer I refer to in the EMS series was rebuked as being "off the mark" by the EMS brass, the staffer who wrote that response had no idea how that phrase would land. That's why public process belongs in print rather than in face-to-face private chats over coffee and chili in a firehouse. That approach favors the "establishment". You rock, m'man!
OPEN LETTER FROM LETTERS FROM THE VALLEY COUNTY ELECTORATE
To: St. Luke's Trauma Program, Valley Countywide EMS, Local Fire Districts, Valley County Sheriff's Office
Re: Questions about training exercise
I was alerted to a massive training exercise you are conducting Tuesday by a reader. He stumbled across it on the Star-News website while looking up something else. The online story did not appear in the print edition (I looked through it twice) or if it did, it was in a location too obscure to be effective public notice of such a publicly visible event.
Unless things have changed dramatically in the two years we've been gone from The Star-News, only a tiny fraction of the newspaper readership looks at the website. Most read the print edition either in hard copy or in digital pdf form. It was pure coincidence that I was alerted to it.
Is this training drama still going to unfold in the middle of downtown McCall with the public largely unaware that it isn't the real thing?
Was there any thought given to rescheduling it until effective notice could be given? What is your policy on effective notice of these kinds of events?
Even though this is an event orchestrated by St. Luke's McCall, did anybody in EMS management give thought to how staging this event so close to an election in which EMS funding is on the ballot would look to the public? I am getting emails from readers who suspect it is a publicity stunt to sell the levy. I know it isn't, but once that wildfire gets started, it's hard to tamp down.
I don't manage the newspaper anymore, but I presume the people who do will report on such a spectacular event. Here's a sincere and friendly word of advice to EMS staff: don't fan the publicity stunt flame. Avoid any reference to being "stretched" or "understaffed" in any interaction regarding this exercise until after the election.
There are some other aspects of this that I would like to be educated on:
• The exercise involves an accident involving a tour bus and a hazmat truck. I am guessing that the chances of such a tragedy happening near Legacy Park are about .000000001%. So what is the benefit of disrupting downtown for 2 1/2 hours? Such an accident would more likely happen on the bypass, which was built to serve the types of vehicles involved in the exercise. And to avoid messing up traffic on the bypass, couldn't this have been staged in a pasture somewhere on Mission Street? That seems to be more realistic in terms of distance from hospital/ambulance facilities that would mobilize in such an event.
• Why choose such an unlikely event when you could use public resources to make sure you are prepared for a much more realistic tragedy, like a school shooting?
• I know that we want our responders to be prepared for the worst, but since instinctive responses are the product of repetition, how is this training effective? If such a thing has such a remote chance of actually happening, will anybody remember what to do if it does?
I look forward to the answers to these questions. I think many of your constituents do too. The most effective first response partnership is between providers and an informed electorate.
Yours for a strong partnership,
Tomi Grote
ORIGIN OF LDVCE MAILING LIST
When we owned The Star-News, Tom and I used our personal, not business, email addresses. Over the 40 years that we ran the newspaper, we corresponded with just about everybody in the county at one time or another. Email apps store email addresses in a database file, so it was a simple matter to turn those DBs into a spreadsheet. There was so much correspondence over so many years, we couldn't tell specifically how those email addresses got in the DB. It could have been a submission like an obit or a classified ad. Some could have come in as cc's to another email. For instance, we would be copied on a group mailing sent by a club or organization. So if you received correspondence from a group that was copied to us during our years at the paper, you likely landed in our DB.
We didn't pirate the Star-News subscription list because we didn't need to. The list we generated from our DB had far more contacts from a much broader demographic. We looked at the regulations governing "unsolicited" correspondence. All email correspondence between personal addresses is considered personal correspondence. Going back to the group analogy. If you get email from a group, the Benevolent Order of Town Deer Lovers for example, you didn't "sign up" to be on that mailing list. It is assumed that because you are a member of the group that you want to read the group's newsletter. When you receive an email from an old acquaintance, you didn't specifically grant permission to that person.
Personal correspondence is outside the spamming/unsolicited mail regulations because if such a policy were in place, it would be unenforceable. And it would do more harm than good. Perhaps hearing from that old acquaintance was painful. But in more cases, hearing from blasts from our pasts is a pleasure. Technology, such as spam filters, blocking and unsubscribe buttons empower you to control your email consumption with a convenient click.
There is also an exemption for political correspondence, which this Substack clearly is. Have you been swatting unsolicited texts, emails and robo calls like flies during this election season? Me too. That's because politicians talk a big game about protecting your privacy but insist on preserving their right to invade it. The exemption for political correspondence is another crack I decided to slip through. I had a hunch that a blog dedicated to historical perspective and the airing of plausible alternative points of view is needed in this community. That has turned out to be true. Since my first pre-Substack mailing went out in May on the M-D housing levy, an astoundingly small number have opted out.
I deeply respect your privacy. Before I started the Substack, I sent two successive emails announcing it with an opt-out button at the very top. Maybe you remember getting those. It didn't blink because I hate that. But it couldn't have been more obvious if it had crawled onto your lap and called you 'momma'. Some did opt out and we purged them from the list. Happily, Substack now manages all of that. The manual management was mind-numbingly tedious.
Curiously, the letter writer was not on our original list, so either he subscribed voluntarily or he had a post forwarded to him or he wrote his letter under a pseudonym. Our readers are smarter than the average population. We presume you know where the unsubscribe button is located and that it isn't too much trouble to blow us into email oblivion if you so choose. That so many of you haven't is such a compliment. Thanks for reading! —TSG
Thank you for writing this column! I've greatly missed reading your editorials in the Star News.
Thank you Erin, for the compliment. Our newspaper readers were our everything. You Substack readers are our new everything —TSG
So... we are already yearly taxed Donnelly RFPD$245.57 and V.C. EMS district $76.82 and they want to tax us more? When their wonderful services are needed we are billed or our insurance company pays them it is not a free service. They are going to tax working and retired people out of existence and we will not be able to afford to live here anymore.
I have been reflecting on the invaluable insights you have shared, which have sparked engaging discussions. Many of us reached out, both prior to and following the launch of your platform, eager to participate in meaningful dialogue.
You rightly noted, “I do not think EMS has done an effective job of communicating with the public. They complain that we never attend their meetings or visit their firehouses. But it is not the public's responsibility to come to them; it should be the other way around. One of the reasons I started this Substack was to create a platform that fosters genuine conversation rather than talking past each other.”
However, it seems that our offers for open dialogue have not yet been embraced. Your platform holds remarkable potential to cultivate these essential conversations, and I sincerely value your perspective. With your extensive 40 years of experience, I believe we have overlooked a significant opportunity—one that enables us not only to share insights but also to collaborate in fostering a more nuanced understanding of the issues at hand.
While I respect your earlier assertion, “I made a significant point in my early posts that I would not strive for balance, if such a thing even exists,” I encourage you to consider that a one-sided critique may unintentionally hinder the growth and collaboration we all aspire to achieve.
I would also like to point out that many of the concerns we have discussed are already available online, in public forums, and discussed during those community meetings. For more detailed information, I invite you all to explore the links below, which provide comprehensive responses to these issues, including budgetary information.
https://valleycountywideems.com/2024/10/more-new-faqs-inspired-by-residents/
https://www.facebook.com/valleycountywideems
Video explaining these topics → https://www.facebook.com/share/p/PE5FmnnPQLXXZocN/
Additionally, we will be hosting more informational public events to improve communication and clarify information.
Tuesday October 29th - 6:30pm ONLINE FORUM: Chat with us from the comfort of your home!
Wednesday October 30th - 6:30pm at Alpine Playhouse
Saturday November 2nd - 2:00pm at the Roxy Theatre
Thank you, Tomi, for responding to my previous comments on your
Post of The Apocalypse Bingo Model and for your most recent battering ram post. I applaud your comment, "One of the reasons I started this Substack was to be a platform that will help us quit talking past each other and help us talk with each other." I look forward to your future posts
on other issues we face in Valley County.
Many of our commissioners, mayors, and council members ignore public comments and input on solutions to Valley County's issues, which is discouraging.
As I've mentioned before, the lack of proactive leadership on the EMS issue for over a decade has led us to our third levy vote. It's time we addressed the adverse impacts of unprecedented growth approvals and the interconnected issues of water, land, wildlife, and social welfare. We must transition from reactive decisions to proactive problem-solving to prevent crises.
Your points on communication failures remind me of why McCall's first library bond failed. I am on the library board of trustees and was outspoken about how the first bond process was communicated to the public. I was sad the bond failed because of my love for libraries, which have always been a magical, helpful place, and my support for librarians who have helped me my entire life. The failed bond hit me hard. I learned from that experience that our communication effort did not inform the public why we needed a new library. The lesson of a failed communication effort on the first bond became clear when Lola Elliot and I knocked on over 200 doors in McCall as individuals, not library board members, to explain why we needed a new library. I discovered how many people were amazed at how a library bond failed and appreciated the people whose doors we knocked on asked us questions we answered. The second bond passed by 78% of the voters, a record for a super majority bond vote.
I also will admit to my bias in voting yes to the EMS levy. Growing up, I was surrounded by firefighters, EMS, and Police officers because my dad was a firefighter, and I briefly served as a volunteer firefighter. When the firehouse siren wailed, my friends and I followed the fire trucks, and I watched my dad, and his fellow firefighters run into burning buildings. When my dad became a paramedic, I saw him come home stressed and sad from what he saw every time they lost someone. I admit my bias because many of our firefighters, EMS, and hospital staff are friends, and I have listened to their stories and learned why they need a yes on the EMS levy.
While I thought about and researched your Temporary tax solution, I have to agree with Chief Garret de Jong's comment: When salaries are tied to temporary funding and people working at the agency have to wait in angst every couple of years, they are less likely to keep working at that agency, and, in my experience watching other Fire/EMS agencies, it creates significant turnover." I would not want the threat of my job on the line every few years. It may be why so many businesses in Valley County face staff shortages, such as the insecurity of their staff's economic situation and temporary leases for housing. I also believe we need not place additional stress on those who risk their lives to serve us, protect us, and deal with what they see in emergency responses. I know EMS and first responders chose their profession, and I am grateful for the men and women who serve and protect us.
Tomi, while we may disagree on the EMS debate, I value your perspective and the discussion it has sparked. I hope the levy passes, but if it doesn't, I appreciate the solutions and thoughtful debate you've brought to the table, and I will not lose hope that our community will figure out an EMS solution for all of us.
Thank you.
Danielle, you wrote: "However, it seems that our offers for open dialogue have not yet been embraced."
My answer: Maybe we have a differing definition of "open dialogue." Have I not responded to your comments and the others posted by EMS staff with equally detailed comments of my own? And some of my readers have chimed in with thoughts both pro and con. That fits my definition of open dialogue. What is its shortcoming in your view?
You wrote: "I encourage you to consider that a one-sided critique may unintentionally hinder the growth and collaboration we all aspire to achieve."
My answer: One-sided critiques are what this country was built on. I consider your messaging to be extremely one-sided. I expect it to be. And I don't have the public bucks to buy color ads, send out mailers and pay people to create a website for me. Platforms like Substack are the great equalizer. They give the little guy some leverage against a far more well-heeled faction.
As long as you opened this door, I'm going to be a patriotic boor and walk through it. The rivalry of one-sided opinions is what this country's founders spent a good deal of time on. They recognized that the "marketplace of ideas" is critical to a free people. Ideally, a proposal is advanced. All citizens have the right to weigh in. Some arguments are going to find traction. Others won't. After a reasonable period, a decision is made at the ballot box. The side who made the best case prevails. One-sided opinions are sharpened and improved by colliding with other one-sided opinions. This is why I argue that we are the most educated electorate on the planet.
With the First Amendment as its vanguard, the success of this American Experiment (so far) is irrefutable. This process is obstreperous and tedious to be sure. And it is extremely public. The more public, the better. I don't think of myself as your collaborator. Our editorial page was a 40 year collection of one-sided critiques. What would have happened to our credibility if we had consistently been "collaborating" with local government? You accurately quoted my actual words (another of the advantages of print over verbal discussion), which described my goal as, "(fostering) genuine conversation rather than talking past each other." How can that be characterized as being in support of "collaboration"? And I daresay we likely differ on the definition of "growth."
The addition to your website of the page "inspired by residents" is a fabulous, if not a bit jargon-laced, effort. But I note that it was added on October 25th, too late to be of much influence. It should have been added a month ago, maybe even in May when your campaign started. A reference to it and updates to it (to generate interest) should have been a regular feature of your newspaper advertising. Providing references to information is clearly within the statutory permissions. In general, you conducted a rhetoric-based campaign and not one rooted in helping the electorate understand the economics of EMS. I did the opposite, by offering specific alternatives, one in particular.
I didn't get into your budgets and the justification for your proposal because it wasn't relevant to my position. For the purposes of this particular ballot question, I don't care how much money you are asking for or for what. I think a temporary tax is a better mechanism to fund EMS. Period. And I have given my readers detailed reasons why I think so. There is nothing on the EMS website that I can find that states your side on this point despite my now month-long promotion of it. A fire-chief did a nice job of framing it in a comment on this very Substack and we had a most educational exchange that I'm sure my readers appreciated. But they can't find it on your website.
Danielle, that very valuable conversation wouldn't have taken place without my "one-sided" voice.
Thank you David for yet another heartfelt and thoughtful comment. You left out an aspect to your library bond reference that is quite relevant to the EMS discussion. While I'm certain your door knocking was productive for both you and the people you talked with, I don't think it was what passed that proposal on the second try. I posit that it passed because you changed the proposal to eliminate all the ancillary spending baggage that made the first one an omnibus. In other words, having been sent back to the drawing board the first time, you listened to the electorate and came back with a smaller, much more specific ballot question. And you were rewarded for that.
My consistent complaint on the EMS proposal is that they will not take no for an answer. Over and over again. Unlike yours, their proposal has not changed. That is what inspired the reference to the Woodsman Café sign in this post. I realize some found that a bit coarse, but I don't know what else I can do to make this point. The electorate isn't hard of hearing. If the proposal was to buy ice cream to comfort a child who had just skinned her knees, some would vote no. There are voters who just can't be bothered with civics. They won't vote in this election either. Neither of these types are likely to be influenced by you or me or the EMS lobby. So the only recourse is to turn some 'no' votes into 'yes' votes.
But that ignores the other very real possibility that 'yes' votes can be turned into 'no' votes when the conversation becomes two-sided, which I don't think it was in the first two elections. When you poke a bear once, it might think you are a fly and swat at you. If you poke it twice, you're lucky if what you get is an impatient growl. But poke it again and you get what you deserve. If this levy passes, I will grudgingly give up a month of Netflix and move on. But if it fails, my bet is it will be by a bigger margin than the first two. Even the most patient bear has its breaking point.
I am really enjoying reading an independent, well researched and pragmatic point of view on issues like this one. Your example of their use of “critical” and “necessary” especially hit home. In my last LTE to the Star-News I used a similar example that the Department of Defense and Perpetua Resources use for antimony being “critical” and “crucial” to national security and the war in Ukraine. I guess this means we will have to wait until Perpetua starts actually producing antimony for the war to be won. Let’s see, five years from now?
Thank you Tomi…..great take on this!
Your comment is music Sam. You get it. A lot of folks are thinking this Substack was created to take down the EMS levy. They don't get it. I am here to share my knowledge of the local public process (which really isn't much different from any local process) to help people see the similarities in how government entities use their 'authority' to intimidate dissent. I am absolutely certain that when the initial "just asking questions" letter writer I refer to in the EMS series was rebuked as being "off the mark" by the EMS brass, the staffer who wrote that response had no idea how that phrase would land. That's why public process belongs in print rather than in face-to-face private chats over coffee and chili in a firehouse. That approach favors the "establishment". You rock, m'man!