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I attended the Bonner County Commissioners meeting Friday, Jan. 11, regarding moving an asphalt plant to Sagle. I left the meeting early because of what was said by two of the three commissioners. They do not represent the public. This is a misunderstanding on their part which in short represents totalitarian government and needs to be stopped. Bonner County is not in China, North Korea, or the old Soviet Union.

I suggest that we pursue an immediate petition to recall the two remaining members of the board since the chair has already been voted out, so that future members will fully understand their obligations. They are the legislative branch of government, not the administrative, and certainly not the judicial. As members of the legislative branch their primary responsibility is to the public as a check and balance against the other two branches.

What I saw today is just short of Lenin or Stalin communism in its purest form. In fact, the presence of an armed police officer in a public forum substantiates and supports this at a level I cannot begin to express. They made it very clear they did not care what was being said, and that they would do what they wanted to do regardless of public input. This is supported by the interruptive process created by the chair. If you said something he did not like, he interrupted in what I can best describe as an aggressive manner.

Today was a gross representation of what can best be described as a ”dog and pony” show. This cannot continue or we will allow ourselves to become servants of government not as our Constitution requires.

Grounds for recall are failure to live up to the obligation they made when being sworn in to uphold the Constitution. In my 20-plus years of working in a state legislature from a place with similar ideological political beliefs, I have never seen such an outrageous misrepresentation of government.

JAMES POUND

Sagle