Letters to the Editor

Dear Dane

Thank you Glasgow Courier and specificaly Dane Osen for your local reporting!!! As a spouse of an active duty military member, we rely on your hometown reporting. Your journalism standards are unbiased and helpful. Your efforts helped us make informed decisions regarding this (and past) election. Thank you.

– Kathrina James

To the Taxpayers

Since out-going Commissioner Reinhardt chose to weigh in on the upcoming election with his “facts,” I decided to ask a few questions about his statements in the Courier on 9/28/2016.

[...] Good thing our school board was open-minded enough when they asked the voters if we could spend some tax dollars on new buildings, like $16 million. The taxpayers decided and we now have newer schools. When the taxpayers were again asked for $28,000 operating funds, the taxpayers said no. Hopefully, with the enrollment up the ANB funds will cover the shortage. Either way, the taxpayers decided, not the commissioners.

His next “fact” was regarding Skylark Road. [..] Our garbage road to the landfill seems way more usable than the road to the Ridgerunners. Commissioners spend our tax dollars on whichever roads they decide. Skylark Road is used by more than the few dozen residents living along that road. I would bet every taxpayer/voter in Valley County uses that road, like the Golf Club, Roping Club and the Saddle Club having wedding receptions, dances, reunions and fundraiser dinners all year around. Another statement, “they are gravel roads, it is dry ...” Two days after his letter hit the paper, the National Weather Service reported, “2016 year-to-date is the second wettest since records were kept.” Then he discerns that the roads must be okay, since the taxpayers voted down the 10-mil levy. OR could the taxpayers like me just be a little disgruntled?

His next statement. “I have been here 18 years and have never found any excess tax money.” REALLY? I sit here and look at a $3.8 MILLION dollar prison [sic] built across a city street the taxpayers had NO vote on because “the commissioners (at least two of them according to his next paragraph) determined THEY can spend PILT dollars without voter approval.” They now brag that the prison makes money. Give anyone a free $4 million tax-free building, it should make a profit selling lemonade. Where do these profits go? Or is that NOT any of the taxpayers’ business, either?

Maybe the 837 taxpayers like me who requested by petition, to ASK all voters in Valley County IF they would help build a new pool are a little dissatisfied by our “representation.” The commissioners blocked that question from even being put on the ballot. They decided for you. They said the petition didn’t have enough signatures from the right areas, or something to that effect. I don’t remember seeing a petition to ask for an additional 10 mil levy for gravel, but that was put on the ballot.

I have heard statements that why should the county put any money into a pool, it’s a Glasgow pool. [...] The chances of most taxpayers ever using the prison are pretty slim, just like the chances of many of us ever driving on many of the 1,800 miles of gravel roads in the county are not all that likely. So maybe the commissioners were just told by those 837 voters that we don’t want to gravel your roads, if you won’t even allow the taxpayers to decide on a new pool. The chances of every voter having a brother, sister, child or parent deserving a better place to learn to swim, or exercise and just have fun are far more likely than those folks going to jail or using money of those gravel roads. The Glasgow Recreation Department has an excellent teaching program and has taught thousands of folks how to swim safely so they can safely go fishing, boating, water skiing, jet skiing and enjoy the lake or the dredges or the Milk River without the fear of their children drowning. I’ll bet many of those folks who were taught to swim are now taxpayers, from rural communities around Opheim, Lustre, Frazer, Nashua, Duck Creek, the Pines and maybe even Hinsdale.

I hereby challenge the 837 voters [...] to put our money where our mouth’s are. Join my offer to set aside a DOLLAR a DAY for the next two years. When the next commissioners seat is up for election, we can say here is $600,000 toward a new pool. Previous commissioners demonstrated they can and did appropriate $3.8 million WITHOUT voter approval in the interest of the safety of our county residents. Ask the next candidates if they would appropriate one fourth (1/4th) as much as they did for criminal housing and help the community build a new facility for the water safety of our entire county’s citizens. “It doesn’t TAX anyone.” That would be a one-time good faith gesture of $950,000, accommodating everyone in the county. That’s who will get my vote.

– Dennis Garsjo

Glasgow