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A Small Community Divided
Editor:
Here in Carp Lake Township, we are seeing a trend that should concern all of us: our small community is becoming divided. What is causing that division? In my view, much of it comes down to local politics and the way some local government business is being handled.
Local government should be about the people who live here -- not personalities, grudges, sides, or who agrees with whom. It should be about following the rules, following proper procedures, keeping the public informed, and treating every resident with respect.
Over the past year, I have spent considerable time attending, recording, and making public meetings available through my local news channel. I started doing this because I believe residents have a right to see what their government is doing.
Record it. Make it available. Let the public see for themselves. That simple idea should bring people together, not divide us.
Instead, we have seen disagreements involving public records, access to information, meeting procedures, township communications, ordinances, and how residents are treated when they ask questions or raise concerns. These issues are not about one person or one disagreement. They are contributing to a larger problem: a loss of trust between residents and local government.
Residents asking questions should not be viewed as attacks. A resident requesting public records is not the enemy of the township. A resident recording a public meeting is not the enemy of the township. And elected officials being questioned by constituents should not automatically become a personal conflict.
We are neighbors. We live here together, and we will continue living here long after today’s officials are gone. A healthy community can disagree. What is unhealthy is when disagreements turn neighbors against neighbors and questions about government become personal battles.
We need to get back to the basics: follow the law, follow proper procedures, make government records accessible, allow the public to observe its government, and treat people with respect--even when we disagree.
Transparency does not belong to one political side or another. It belongs to everyone.
Our township belongs to all of us.
If we want to stop being a community divided, perhaps the first step is remembering that we are still a community.
Let’s start acting like one.
William Louis
White Pine
Take the Jail Tour!
Editor:
We want to encourage Houghton County residents to take advantage of the sheriff’s invitation to tour the Houghton County Jail on Thursdays at 2 p.m. We joined eight other taxpayers on Sept. 17 for an unbiased discussion and four of the jail complex. We found it an eye-opening experience, exposing many shortcomings. After 60 plus years of us and piece-meal additions it is deterioating. It lacks space and now is poorly designed for the type and number of prisoners it houses. It is no longer safe for eiher the personnel or the prisoners.
With the jail population constantly changing, prisoners are constantly being moved from cell to cell based on the type of crime they are there for (felons with felons, misdemeanors with misdemeanors, women with women, etc.). There are many being held with mental health and drug abuse issues, as we do not have a public facility for them. Our current facility is not what they need, nor is the staff trained in mental care. Is is used as a catch-all solution for the court system.
As a group, we asked many questions and offered a few solutions. We asked how the county got into its current problem. We asked to see blueprints for the proposed new jail and were told that there aren’t any yet, due to the extreme cost of hiring an architect. At this point, a suggestion was made to involve Michigan Tech’s engineering department. How can you expect voters to pass a spending bill without seeing what they are buying? It is hoped that this new facility would contain 60 beds and a small courtroom that could handle the majority of the inmate cases. It is also hoped that the design would allow for better use of jail personnel, with one officer able to control cell doors and observe many prison cells electronically.
We learned that prisoners are charged $15/day to stay in our facility. This price was set in the 1960s. Perhaps this could be slightly increased to help offset some of the costs. We do not know if these charges are always being paid by all or most of the inmates.
This problem is not going to go away and will only become more expensive in the future. Please take the tour!
We want to thank Sheriff Saaranen and his staff for hosting this event and taking the time to answer questions and tour the facility.
Paul and Sue Slinde
Atlantic Mine
Freedom, sovereignty, and climate action
Editor:
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump emphasized freedom and U.S. sovereignty while dismissing the threat posed by climate change.
The principle of equal liberty calls on us to maximize our own freedom without interfering with the freedom of others. Human-induced climate change is causing sea-level rise by warming the oceans and melting land ice. Consider that millions of Bangladeshis are farming on land that is within a meter of high tide. Their freedoms should be meaningful as well.
Have we forgotten the horrific flooding in Nepal, where climate change has eroded glaciers and melted mountain permafrost, triggering a catastrophic collapse? These rapidly melting Himalayan glaciers feed rivers that sustain two billion people, many of whom live in India, Pakistan and China, which are nuclear powers.
How might President Trump’s view on climate change be different if he was the head of a small island nation, whose survival is threatened by climate change, even though it has contributed very little to global carbon dioxide emissions? What about the sovereignty of Fiji and the Marshall Islands?
Climate change helps create the very refugees Trump condemned in his U.N. speech. His militarized immigration policies have turned the United States into what investigative journalist and author Christian Parenti calls an “armed lifeboat.” Instead of cooperating globally or addressing the root causes of climate change, rich countries protect their own resources while shutting out the rest of the world.
Although liberty is a fundamental right, the flip side of every right is a responsibility. Indian scientist and activist Vandana Shiva points out that the “separation of rights and responsibilities is the beginning of any destructive enterprise.”
America has extraordinary power to shape the world, and the U.S. should embrace that responsibility through climate action.
Terry Hanson
Grafton, WI